We had afternoon tea with Sue and Maude today. It was rearranged from last week because of the deadline we didn’t meet. Sue supplied the cake last week, so I thought it only fair that this week it was my turn.
I flicked through various cook books – it’s so rare I get to bake – and hit on a cake I’d never heard of. It’s called a whole orange cake and, you’ll never guess, it’s made with a whole orange. Everything. Flesh, juice, pith, skin, the lot. It gets quartered and chucked in a blender.
The rest of the ingredients are added to the blended orange, whizzed up and poured into a cake tin. Into the oven and, 50 minutes later with a kitchen reeking of orange, out comes a cake.
I decided to add a whipped yoghurt and coconut topping, sprinkled with dessicated coconut, to stop it looking too bland. It could have been a bit stiffer, but it added a lovely sharpness.
Upon further investigation, I have found lots of lovely variations which I might try. One day. I think they’d make nice individual cakes in a muffin tin with a mascarpone top.
Anyway, we turned up at Sue’s and I presented the cake and she said “That’s my favourite cake!” Who’da thunk it?
Incidentally, the first time I heard the expression ‘who’da thunk it’, was in the film version of The Group and, while I remember very little about the film, I have always used this quote. It reminds me, too, that I always intended to read the book yet still haven’t. I must rectify that.
But, back to Sue and the whole orange cake…
We sat and ate cake and drank tea while the girls all played. Actually, Emma and Maude played. Freya mostly laid down on my leg, giving her gremlin growl whenever Maude had the audacity to come near.
Maude is a beautiful dog and delightfully affectionate. She has even managed to win Emma over. It was lovely to see them (sort of) playing together. Normally Emma warns her off with a growl or two.
I have to say that the cake went down very well. We managed to eat the whole thing between the three of us and a couple of hours chatting about everything from Sweden to living in a small village in France.
We left suggesting we should do it more often. Sue said she’d make the next cake. I bet she doesn’t accidentally make my favourite.
