Thursday, January 15, 2015

Clementine Cake

Clementine Cake
 
I am not a frivolous person.  I am frugal, practical, efficient but not frivolous.  I despise wastefulness.  At this stage of my life I have pretty much everything I need.  When Christmas rolls around I am sure to tell my husband and kids I do not need anything and please do not go buy stuff just so there is something under the tree for me.  Really.  That is what will make me happiest. 

And that is just what I said to them back in November.  Until one day this little catalog came in the mail from Pier One Imports.  Oh - I also do not bake much.  I am not good at it.  I drool over dessert and baking blogs but I leave it to them.  My cakes never look like theirs. Nor my cookies, or cake pops, or cupcakes.  Luckily I have kids so I let them do the decorating and then it is okay that it does not look like theirs.   So back to that little catalog that arrived in the mail.  In it was this beautiful cake stand.  For some reason I wanted it.  And I did not stop wanting it.  Usually I can talk myself out of pretty much any purchase.  But not this.  It is definitely not practical.  It is totally frivolous.  Really not me at all.  But I wanted it all the same and made sure everyone knew it.  So here it is.  I found it under the Christmas tree.

I promised that from now on I will put all the birthday cakes in it.  But I did want to try it out.  So today I made a cake.  I wanted something light and refreshing.  Something that would make the stand the star.  I had just purchased a box of clementines and they turned out to be perfect.  I pieced together this recipe and for once it came out exactly as I wanted it to.  It is perfect with a cup of hot tea. 


Isn't it beautiful?!

Clementine Cake

Ingredients for cake:

2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
4-5 clementines to make puree (to make 1 1/3 cups)
1 tablespoon apricot jam

Preheat oven to 350. One eight cup cake pan or bundt pan well greased and floured. 

1.  Remove the zest from the clementines.  I found this easiest to do with a carrot peeler.  Place the fruit and the zest in a food processor or blender and puree. Strain 1/3 cup of the juice and set aside for syrup and glaze.  You should have about one cup puree remaining.  Do not strain remaining puree - leave in the pureed fruit and zest. 
2.  Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3.  Using a hand blender blend the eggs and sugar together until the eggs are light and the sugar is dissolved.  Blend in the oil and the 1 cup of puree.  Blend in the flour mixture.
4.  Pour into cake pan and bake 50 - 55 minutes until a tester comes out clean.  Turn the oven off. Remove from the oven and poke holes all over the cake with a skewer.  Pour the syrup slowly over the cake.  Put the cake back in the oven for 5 minutes. 
5.  Remove the cake from the oven and let stand 5 minutes more.  Then gently loosen the cake and turn it onto a plate.  Melt the apricot jam and lightly brush a thin layer all over the cake.  Let the cake cool completely.
6.  When the cake is cool make the glaze and drizzle it over the cake.  Place the cake on a beautiful cake stand and enjoy!

Ingredients for syrup:

Reserved strained puree
1/4 cup sugar

1. Remove 1 tablespoon of the clementine juice and set aside for glaze.  Put the rest in a small pan.  Add the sugar and bring the a simmer.  Stir and cook until the sugar is dissolved completely. 

Ingredients for glaze:

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon reserved clementine juice
1 cup confectioners sugar

1 Melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave.  Add juice and sugar.  Whisk until smooth.  Drizzle over cake.  This glaze sets up pretty quickly so make it right before you will be using it.








2 comments:

Comments welcome! I look forward to hearing from you!