Whole Orange Cake - Gluten Free

My friend Julia Ganson came to our house with a wonderful moist cake made from whole oranges and no flour. A recipe she found when she was living in New Zealand, carefully kept and carried over the seas to America.  She said it’s easy! You just boil the oranges, peel and all , for two hours. The cake is refreshing and bursting with orange flavor. So I looked on line and found this recipe from RecipeTin Eats. The New Zealand recipe adds 1/4 teaspoon of cardamon and suggest you finely grind the raw almonds rather than using almond meal. Also RecipeTin Eats boils the oranges for 10 minutes and then changes the water to boil again twice. Perhaps to eliminate some bitterness, I did boil the oranges for three consecutive times, but I’m going to try boiling for two hours. 

Ingredients

3 oranges

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

6 large eggs

1 1/4 cups sugar 

2 3/4 cups almond meal/ground raw almonds

1/4 teaspoon cardamon

Directions

Place 3 oranges in a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil over medium high heat, boil for two hours, keep an eye on the level of water.

Drain and rinse the oranges, then cool slightly.

Slice into 1/4 inch slices then dice, removing any seeds.

Cool completely.

Heat oven t o 320 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease and line a 9 inch cake pan with parchment baking paper (I used a spring form pan)

Place chopped oranges in a food processor. Blitz on high for four ten seconds , scraping down the sides in between until it is pureed into a marmalade consistency with only a few visible bits of rind visible, does not need to be completely smooth.

Add 2 3/4 almond meal, 6 eggs, 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder,  1 1/4 cups sugar and  1/4 teaspoon cardamon to the orange mixture. Blitz for 10 seconds on high until combined.

Pour into prepared cake pan. Bake for 60 minutes until the surface is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool in the cake pan.

Decorate with three slices of orange and sprigs of flowers.

Radish Tower at the Farmer's Market

 I just had to snap a picture of this impressive gigantic tower of radishes at the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning.

I used the leaves to make a pesto and the radishes were nice and crunchy.

Scape Pesto

 Garlic cloves planted in October, anywhere in the garden are the first leaves to show in spring. In early June, here in Syracuse, the scapes suddenly appear, ready to make flowers - the scapes need to be cut to ensure large garlic cloves. The scapes are delicious chopped and sautéed in dishes where you traditionally use garlic. Also scapes make a delicious pesto. This scape recipe is perfect. I’ve used radish leaves mixed with a few basil leaves as an alternative. Can be frozen.

Ingredients

8 garlic scapes ends trimmed and scares roughly chopped.

1/4 cup pinenuts

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Salt 

1/4 Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

1 1/2 oz basil leaves, approximately 1 bunch

Ground black pepper

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions

In the bowl of a food processor combine scapes, pine nuts, 

lemon juice and zest, season with salt,

Pulse, scraping down sides halfway through with a

flexible spatula, until scapes and nuts are broken down into small pieces, 

about 1 minute. Add basil and pulse until finely minced, about ten 1-second

pulses. Add extra virgin olive oil in a steady thin stream. Taste and add salt and 

pepper as needed

Can be used right away with linguine or spaghetti, or frozen.

Sherami's Cheese Charcuterie

  Sherami hosted our book club this month, and she, being uniquely creative, had a set of Charcuterie Cheese cups on her counter. They all looked so beautiful, we each took one cup and spent ages trying to guess what she had put inside. The salami rose was especially intriguing. . . . .

 I’m sure ours will not come out so perfect, but it’s a terrific idea.

Here’s what was inside.

At the very bottom there is a layer of party mix.

4 blueberries

2 rasberries

2 white cheddar cheese squares (Aldi’s)

1 round baby bel (BJ’s)

3 cheddar cheese cubes (Aldi’s)

1 kalamata and 1 casteletrano olive on a toothpick (Wegman’s)

1 salami rose Appleton Farms Original Dry Salami,        4 slices per rose

1 sprig of rosemary

1 Delizza Macaron (Tops - frozen food dept.)

There is a video on u-tube showing how to make a salami rose  without a shot glass presented by officiallyglutenfree.com

1. Lay 4 slices of overlapping salami
   
   
   

2. . Fold all 4 slices over in half

   
   
   
   
   

3. Start rolling from one end.

 4. Use a tooth pick to secure the rosebud and

    Decorate with basil leaves.

    Although Sherami used a sprig of rosemary which held up very well, no wilting.