Tag Archives: cake

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Orange spice cake

Sunflower in ice 20 Feb 2018

Sunflower in ice 20 Feb 2018

I made a cake! Mostly. Until just now I didn’t realized that I made the cake twice without the “soak.” That indicates that I should try again!

Cake

3 c cake flour
0.5 c almond flour
1 T baking powder
1 t baking soda
0.5 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
0.5 t cardamom
0.5 t allspice
0.25 t ground cloves
0.125 t ground nutmeg
1.5 c sugar
1 stick softened unsalted butter
0.5 c applesauce
3 large eggs
1 c milk
1 T vinegar or lemon juice
2 t vanilla
1 t orange extract

Preheat over to 325 F. Combine flour, almond flour, and all dry ingredients except the sugar in a bowl. Mix well. In a separate bowl combine sugar and butter until smooth-ish. Add remaining wet ingredients and mix well. Incorporate dry ingredients into wet, without over mixing. Pour in three greased 8-inch round pans.  Bake for 45-50 minutes.

Soak

1/2 c orange marmalade
4 T rum or orange juice

Warm the marmalade enough to melt. Add rum. Brush the soak on the cake.

Frosting

12 oz skyr (Icelandic cultured dairy product)
1 c powdered sugar
1 pt whipping cream

Whip the skyr and powdered sugar until well mixed. Add the whipping cream and beat to soft peaks. Frost the cake.

In all honesty, I didn’t make the frosting either. However, that was a choice rather than an outright omission. This recipe was adapted from The Sons of Norway Viking December 2017 issue. They called it Festive Orange Spice Cake. I’m guessing that the soak and frosting make it festive!

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Oatmeal spice cake

Roll the presses! I made food! This recipe is made from a combination of two different cakes recipes.

1 c rolled oats
1.25 c boiling water
0.25 c butter
0.5 c white sugar*
0.5 c packed brown sugar*
2 eggs
3 T plain or vanilla yogurt
1.5 c flour
0.5 t nutmeg
0.5 t cinnamon
0.5 t allspice
0.25 t ground cloves
1 t baking soda
0.5 t salt

In a small bowl, stir oats into boiling water. Set aside to soak.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray oil on the bottom and sides of an 8×8 inch baking pan.
In a medium bowl, cream together the white sugar, brown sugar and butter until smooth. Beat in the eggs and yogurt. Combine flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, baking soda, and, salt. Add these dry ingredients to the egg mixture stir just until moistened. Mix in the soaked oats. Pour into the prepared pan, and spread evenly.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

* The recipe that I began with called for 1 cup of each type of sugar. This was too sweet. One-half cup of each produces a good cake. Adding three-quarters white sugar will make the cake sweeter and may improve the cake structure (it is a little dense).

The spices are good in this cake. I may try it again with 50% more nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

I recently tried this Cauliflower Rice Stuffing and found it to be good and not as different from other dressings as I would have guessed. The mushrooms tie everything together and I would likely skip this recipe if I didn’t like mushrooms. Two heads of cauliflower is a lot of cauliflower, but there were a reasonable amount of leftovers when I made it for just George and myself. I would make this recipe again, perhaps with the additions of grated carrot and dried cranberries.