Gateau a l'Orange de Madame Mahjoub

From Nancy Harmon Jenkins's book Essential Mediterranean comes Madame Mahjoub's orange cake recipe. This plain-looking cake is a delight in disguise and perfect with tea.

The original recipe calls for the Maltaise de Tunisie blood oranges and claims that they give the cake a beautiful red blush. I didn't have blood oranges the first time I made and used ordinary juice oranges, and it was delicious anyway. I tried it again with the blood oranges available here in Michigan, and it came out greenish-brown instead of the claimed "red blush." It was still wonderful, but if you think your guests would be put off by the odd color I recommend sticking with thin-skinned juice oranges. Jenkins makes a point of saying the entire orange (minus seeds) is used, so I would shy away from using navel oranges as their skin is so thick compared to blood oranges.

I was going to submit this for Is My Blog Burning #14 Orange, but when I cooked it up, the cake was a decidedly yellow color. Certainly bits of orange rind are sprinkled throughout the cake, but I decided it simply was not orange enough to qualify. It is, however, delicious, so I present to you...

Gateau a l'Orange de Madame Mahjoub
9 inch cake pan or spring form pan, buttered and floured
2 small blood oranges (or thin-skinned juice oranges).  Organic preferred, as you'll use the entire orange.
1/3 C olive oil
2 C unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)
powdered sugar for dusting

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F and butter and flour your cake pan.

Wash oranges thoroughly to remove pesticide and wax residue. Slice tops and bottoms off of the oranges to remove the thickest part of the skin and discard.  Chop oranges into chunks and discard the seeds.  In a food processor, process the oranges into a chunky puree.  Add the olive oil slowly and continue to process until it is well blended.

In a bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 

In a large bowl, beat eggs thoroughly and gradually add sugar until mixture is thick and lemon-colored.  Add vanilla and optional almond extract.

Fold about a third of the flour mixture into the eggs and beat until mixed.  Fold in about a third of the orange mixture and beat.  Continue to add flour and orange mixture until everything is combined.  You'll have a chunky batter.

Pour batter into cake pan.  Bake for 60 minutes or until cake is brown on top and has pulled away from the sides of the pan.

Let cake cool.  If you used a spring form pan, remove the sides.  If not, then let cool for five minutes then remove from the pan and allow it to finish cooling.  After it has completely cooled, dust with powdered sugar.

Orange and olive oil puree

Comments

[Scott T.]

This reminds me of this Nigella Lawson recipe for Clementine Cake.

[Nic]

That cake is beautiful - but you didn't list the amount of olive oil in the ingredients.

[Kitchen Chick]

Oops! It's 1/3 cup. I fixed it in the recipe too. Thanks!

[the ulterior epicure]

kitchen chick.

perhaps you could add a bit of orange food colouring and submit it to "my blog is burning!" such a pity, the batter is a beautiful orange...

it will change the taste/consistency - but shredded carrots? who knows, maybe for the better?

u.e.

[keiko]

Hi Kitchen Chick - I'm going to love this, does that taste very different with olive oil from when you make with butter?

[Kitchen Chick]

It doesn't have the buttery taste of... well, butter, but it still tastes like a cake. If you didn't tell people that it had olive oil in it, they would never guess.

So far I've only used mildly flavored olive oils. I haven't tried to make it with a strong grassy flavored olive oil or a really spicy olive oil. (Hmmm... I wonder how it would taste with a peppery or grassy oil.)

i would like to have this reciepe in french

i would like to have this reciepe in french,because it is quite difficult for us to get the mesurement
thanks

[Kitchen Chick]

Je ne parle pas francais bien, so I regret I cannot translate it fully for you. However, there are many website sites that will translate measurements from US imperial to metric. Try:
http://www.thatsmyhome.com/recipes/conversion.htm

For this recipe, you need to know:
1 US C (cup) = approximately 225 fluid ml.
1 US tsp (teaspoon) = approximately 5 ml.
9 inches = 22.8 cm.
350 degree F oven = approximately 280 Celsius or a Gas Mark 4.

Good luck et bon appétit.