In Season

I hope you know by now that winter in California is my favorite season.  Not necessarily because of the weather-though I do love the years of rainy winters-but because winter is the height of citrus season.  Give me all the Meyer lemons, Eurekas, limes, blood oranges, Cara Caras, kumquats, Satsumas, and Navels!

Do you have a tree that prolifically produces citrus?  Don't know what to do with the overabundance?  Well, I'm your girl!  I will happily take the overflow off your hands.  What will I do with it?  I'll tell you.  I'll make curd, marmalade, have fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast, and bake a cake.  Or two.  Or three. 

A cake recipe that I come back to repeatedly is the yogurt cake.  I first came upon it while reading 'On Rue Tatin' by Susan Hermann Loomis.  It is my favorite kind of recipe.  One or two bowls, mixing with nary a hand mixer or Kitchen Aid in sight, pour batter into a pan, bake.  A yogurt cake is also the kind of cake that tastes better the next day, is totally appropriate to have for breakfast, and gives you the best reason to take tea time in the afternoon. 

Don't believe me?  Grab some of that winter citrus and try it.

Orange Yogurt Cake 

Makes one 9 inch loaf

Adapted from Jo Cooks Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe

For cake batter:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup plain yogurt

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp orange zest

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

1/2 cup canola oil

For glaze:

1/3 cup orange or tangerine juice

1/3 sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350°.  Line a loaf pan with parchment, leaving a bit of an overhang to easily remove cake from pan.  Grease short ends of pan.  Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl.  In a larger bowl, add eggs, sugar, oil, and orange zest.  Whisk until incorporated.  Add extract and yogurt, making sure all ingredients are mixed well.  Add dry ingredients to wet and mix.  Pour batter into loaf pan.  

Bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  While cake is baking, make a simple syrup with the 1/3 cup orange or tangerine juice and 1/3 cup sugar.  Heat over medium flame until sugar melts.  Remove from heat and allow to cool. 

When cake is done, allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pan.  Place cake on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet.  Poke a few holes into the top of the cake, then pour syrup over cake.  Allow syrup to seep into cake. 

Sprinkle with confectioners sugar and serve.  You can make candied peel and garnish with that also.  

Can You Be Obsessed...

...with cake?  Not just being pro-cake.  More than just proclaiming, 'I much prefer cake over pie.'  (That's me)  But...can you be obsessed with a cake?  Can you like a cake so much that you make it once and before it's been completely consumed--not solely by you, thank god--you are already thinking about making it again?  Like NOW.  It's similar to how I felt after I got my first tattoo.  No sooner did I have the first one, not even fully healed, that my mind was swirling with ideas on what the next tattoo would be and where it would go.

If you make this yourself, you'll understand why I couldn't stop thinking about it.  The original recipe  is from Christopher Kimball's 'Milk Street' magazine.  My absolute favorite part is that it's a one bowl recipe--all you need is a bowl and a whisk (and a cake pan, naturally).  No mixer, no fancy gadgets.  The best kind of recipe.  For those of you who are gluten-free...guess what?  It's gluten-free!  The cake, hailing from Galicia, Spain, is known as tarta de Santiago.  Traditionally, it is dusted with powdered sugar using a stencil of the cross of St. James the Great, who is reportedly buried in the region's cathedral.

It's a dense cake.  On the Instagram post, someone commented that it is the perfect marriage of marzipan and meringue.  (It IS!)  It gets better the next day or even the day after that.  A friend drizzled a piece with blackberry honey...and holy crap...it was good.  You can pair it with whipped cream and berries as they do in 'Milk Street.'  It would probably be awesome with vanilla bean ice cream.  But, truthfully, I prefer it in it's simplicity.  Just give me a good cup of coffee to accompany a slice.

The recipe in 'Milk Street' uses 1/4 tsp almond extract and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract and no zest.  After reading the article, I did a little Googling to learn more about the cake and decided I wanted to try adding citrus as it's a more traditional way of baking it.  Either way, you'll love it.


Galician Almond Cake (Tarta de Santiago)
adapted from the recipe on Milk Street's site
makes one 9-inch layer cake

1 cup white sugar
3 large eggs
3 large egg whites
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
zest of one medium lemon
zest of one medium orange
3 tbsp turbinado sugar
1/3 cup sliced almonds

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9-inch cake pan with a circle of parchment and butter the sides.  In a mixing bowl, add the white sugar, eggs, egg whites, almond extract, salt, and citrus zests (roughly 2 tbsp altogether).  Whisk until well-mixed.  Add almond flour and mix until incorporated.

Pour batter into lined cake pan.  Sprinkle top with almonds and turbinado sugar.  Try to alternate, so sugar will caramelize on top of cake and on almonds.  Bake 50-55 minutes, until top browns.  Cake should feel firm when tested with a slight press of finger.  Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.  Run a knife along inner edge of cake before turning out onto plate.  Then invert on second plate.

Zesty!

How great would it be if there were acres of land still covered in citrus groves like in vintage photos of Southern California?  Where there is now sprawl there used to be rows and rows of orange or lemon trees.  If  you look around the neighbourhoods of Los Angeles, you'll spot citrus trees scattered about.  Either left over from decades ago or planted when new neighbourhoods were built, they're around.  Make friends with your neighbours.  When those trees are laden with fruit, ask nicely, and you may get a bushel.

Let me tell you how happy I am to know that I have a co-worker with a Meyer lemon tree in his yard.  I've had not one, but two days where I've gone into work and received bags of lemons to bring home.   Lemon curd has been made and I sit here looking at a bowl overflowing with lemons which will be juiced and zested, with some frozen for later use and most likely, another round of curd made.

In my world, there is no such thing as too much citrus, so after I made the Meyer lemon curd, I thought there was nothing better to put that curd on than citrus-laced scones.  Beyond lemon scones, I made them a triple threat scone.  Filled with a combination of Meyer lemon, Cara Cara orange, and lime, these scones are just perfumed enough to give you a whiff of orange before you bite into one, and a sweet balance of the three at the first bite.

I call them Citrus Bomb Scones. 

Citrus Bomb Scones
Makes about 12 scones

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons butter, cold, cut into cubes
3 oz evaporated milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon each zest of Meyer lemon, Cara Cara orange, and lime
1 teaspoon each juice of Meyer lemon, Cara Cara orange, and lime

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Sift dry ingredients together.  Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  In a separate small bowl, combine eggs and milk and mix.  Add to flour mixture and bring together loosely.  Mix zests of citrus together and add to batter, along with juice.  Mix until a loose dough forms, then turn out onto a floured board.  Roll out dough to roughly 1/2 inch thick and cut into squares or use a biscuit cutter to form scones.  Brush lightly with a little milk and if you like, sprinkle with coarse sugar.  Bake on a parchment lined sheet for 16-20 minutes or until bottoms are golden brown.  

A Lemon in Winter

Winter in Los Angeles does not usually bring to mind freezing temperatures like we had a week or so ago (and still having, though a tad warmer).  Winter does bring to mind a market flowing with citrus...whether little satsumas, bright, big Navel oranges, blushing grapefruits, or sunny lemons.  Even better than your typical lemon is the Meyer lemon.  A little rounder than a true lemon, a Meyer is thought to be a hybrid between a lemon and orange.  The juice is sweeter and the skin smoother and much thinner.

I stopped at the grocer's the other night and right past the bananas, there they were, quietly calling out to me.  The store had them packaged in groups of four, but in looking through the stack, I found a package of two.  Perfect.

I've been slowly returning to my usual self in the kitchen.  Doing more cooking, having more for dinner than a sandwich, and thinking about baking, which I hadn't done since the holidays.  Today was a day off from work and by late this morning, I had those Meyers zested and juiced, though I was still debating what to do with them.  I made fresh ricotta this morning and thought about a Meyer lemon and ricotta cake, or maybe Meyer lemon cupcakes with a simple glaze...but truthfully...both options were more work than I wanted to do.  So I fell back on my tried and true, easy to make, and quick to bake...scones.

They are just what I wanted.  Not too sweet with the delicate taste of Meyer lemons.  Hot out of the oven with a dab of butter...it was perfection.

Meyer Lemon Scones
Makes about a dozen 2-inch scones

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3 tbsp sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 tbsp butter, cut in pieces
4 tbsp Meyer lemon juice
2 teaspoons Meyer lemon zest
2 tbsp milk or water
Sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  In a bowl, sift flour and baking powder.  Add remaining ingredients and with a pastry cutter or fork, mix well.  Turn dough out onto a floured board, rolling out until dough is about half an inch thick and cut scones with a biscuit or cookie cutter.  Alternately, you can make 2-inch rounds with your hands.  The dough will be soft and fairly sticky, so dust your hands with a decent amount of flour.  

If you like, brush the scones with milk and sprinkle with sugar before baking.  I left my plain.

Bake for 16-20 minutes, depending on size.  Remove from oven and allow to cool on cooling rack.