I made the glaze and started to apply it, but then realized i should reserve some unglazed brownie for tomorrow’s taste test, so i cut a strip of cake off to glaze in before eating tomorrow, and glazed the rest.
and i ate some. i really liked it, but i know the lemon flavor will develop overnight.
Thanks! I used a silicone loaf pan I bought at some point but had never used till today. I think it will work nicely for this kind of thing.
Forgot to mention that I used half oil and half butter, as the recipients will take a few days to go through them and the oil typically helps moistness over time, but I wanted the butter for flavor.
Made the View from Great Island lemon brownies. Report here.
Circling back, these were very nice.
The fat to flour ratio in these is higher than the Buttermillk by Sam recipe I made a few days ago, so these were less cakey and more moist starting out.
Might also have been because I baked them for 16 mins for a half recipe (full called for 25-27).
The orange flavor was gentler than the lemon but deep because of the zested sugar, and we all like orange cake so it worked out well.
I just had a bite of one of the pieces I saved for myself, and is moister and deepr in flavor today.
I think @MunchkinRedux has cooked quite a lot from the site, both savory and sweet
I made David Leibovitz’s Almond Cake, which I’ve made before, and we really enjoy, but I’d like to add orange flavor to it. I tried adding the zest of one orange, but you can’t detect it. I then tried a couple of teaspoons of Grand Marnier; same result. Perhaps the zest of two oranges AND a larger amount of Grand Marnier? Or do I need some sort of concentrated orange extract? Note: it’s a rather large cake (6 eggs). BTW, I reduce the amount of sugar to 200 gm, and the salt to a pinch since it’s too salty as is.
How are you incorporating the orange zest? I learned from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbooks that the best way to extract flavor is to rub it into the sugar at the get-go, and it does make a big difference. You can do it by hand, with a whisk, or with a stand mixer on low, just do it before you add the other ingredients. Given that this is a fairly rich cake between the butter and almond paste, I’d add a lot of orange zest and a bit more liqueur.
I just bunged it in with the almond paste and sugar at the start.
Thanks for the tip; I’ll give it a shot, by blending the zest and sugar in the food processor first, and then adding the marzipan.
I’ve made a few recipes from her site. Fish soup, rhubarb scones, stamped gingerbread cookies … these have been solid recipes for us.
@sallyt View From Great Island
If you are using almond paste, there may be almond extract in it.
For all orange cakes, I use orange zest that’s zested into the sugar at the start (so the oils dissolve into the sugar, oleosaccharum trick from an old Chowhound cocktail book of the month), orange juice, and only occasionally orange extract or liquer (the zest and juice are usually plenty).
If you want to try a different almond cake recipe without paste, Julia Turshen’s Afternoon Cake is lovely, and very simple. It’s midway in richness because it uses both flour and almonds (I use almond meal / almond flour, which is finer than grinding them yourself, but that works too).
Dorie has a marmalade-glazed cake with some almond flour. or you can adapt her plain almond cake to add orange flavor.
You can also start with a classic Tarta di Santiago recipe and tweak to orange.
Or just sub almond flour for part of the AP flour in any other orange cake recipe you like. This is the one I make most often (2 eggs per the original version, half the sugar, bake at 325 for no sinking, and reduce olive oil if you’re using almond meal).
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increase zest and juice, rub zest with the sugar first. omit almond extract.
Since my dental hygienist is disappointed if I don’t bring him homemade cookies, I decided to try the Double Chocolate Crinkle Cookies from Zoe Bakes Cookies, from alexandracooks.com site … I’d never even tasted this cookie before.
I followed the recipe exactly, weighing the flour and the cocoa (Valrhona) and chopped up 2 oz of TJ Dark Chocolate Pound Plus bar. The dough was so sticky, a real pain … I may not make these again. I followed her advice to weigh each ball … that was a mess, don’t do it. I switched out to using a 70 scoop. It says to roll the dough into a ball then roll in granulated sugar. No. Drop the dough into the bowl of sugar, roll, then roll in sugar again. After you freeze the balls for 15 minutes, you roll them in Confectioner’s Sugar before baking.
I baked for 10 minutes, taste good, fudgy.
Made 23 cookies
There is a very similar sounding and looking recipe in Dorie’s Cookies. I loved it.
Was the dough extremely sticky?
No, I don’t remember it being sticky.
They look amazing, and great decoration.
So what you and @CaitlinM are recommending is letting the zest sit in the sugar for a while before proceeding? I’ll give that a shot sometime soon as I’m finishing that rather large cake.
I’m not looking for a marzipan-free cake as I like the moisture and texture it adds. Note: I’m not at all concerned about the additional calories; in fact, I welcome them.
