My mouth watered as soon as I saw this simple cake with its beautiful golden crust at Chocolate & Zucchini, but it was the simplicity of the ingredients that convinced me I would be making this one. Equal parts by weight of butter, flour, and sugar flavored with orange. Mmmm... It reminded me of Gâteau a l'Orange de Madame Mahjoub, but richer and made with butter instead of olive oil. I was able to think of nothing else than baking one for nearly two weeks, but I didn't want to bake it just for myself. (I was certain that I would be more than capable of eating the entire cake, which probably would not be a good idea.) After several scheduling snafus, finally we had an evening with a house full of friends. I started the cake, but with one thing and another during the evening, it actually didn't make it into the oven until quite late. And so it was that we ended up with the cake all to ourselves after all. (Mea culpa to my friends. I promise to bake it again.) And it was every bit as good as I imagined: buttery rich, sweet but not overly so, with a tantalizing hint of orange and a delicate caramelized crust, which — I have to agree with Clotilde — is the best part.
I love recipes like this because they are easy enough to remember and the ingredients both few and common enough, that if you find yourself far from home and want to make something simple yet impressively delicious... well, there you have it!
You'll find the recipe at Chocolate & Zucchini courtesy of Jean-François Piège, the chef at Les Ambassadeurs in Paris, who says this is his childhood cake.
I used a 9 inch spring-form pan, which I think makes freeing this cake from the pan especially easy by allowing you to remove the side before putting a plate on top and flipping it over. Though I let mine cool too long, I was able to slide a spatula carefully under the cake to free it from the pan bottom. I used two medium juice oranges to get the 2/3 C of orange juice, and used the zest from both oranges.
My picture has the cake right side up, but the recipe actually calls for it to be served upside down, to show off the lovely caramelized bottom crust. By the way, I think this would be worth trying with eiswein, and I really I had thought to make it for my most recent eiswein adventure.
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