Gâteau à l’Orange … Orange you glad I made this?

“Orange is the happiest color.”
Frank Sinatra
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Tweeting always has sweet surprises on the deck! The wonderful and talented SaffronBerry girl, found this orange cake when the Persian in her became obesessed about finding an orange cake recipe. As she said, “You’ll know we’re a bit obsessive and weird about our citrus fruit. We hoard it, display it, eat it, drink it, preserve it, dry it, cook it, and I’m sure we’d bake it too if there were a tradition like that of Western baking in Iran, heck we’d probably wear oranges and lemons if we could find a way to.

I absolutely adored the way she summed up her citrus emotions, and now I think I might have some Persian DNA in my blood too. I too am very obsessive about citrus everything, and currently have a jar of tangerines and limes being preserved out of an Ottolenghi recipe! Recently made a load of Bitter Orange Marmalade, Dried Apricot, Pistachio and Orange Biscotti and Orange Pastry Cream Tartlets with Candied Tangerines (last 2 recipes yet to be posted).

As Hilda rightly said, the gateau almost feels like a cheesecake without cheese, it’s very light, and yet it’s also dense in that the egg whites don’t give it volume, they just prevent it from being puck-like.
I LOVE ORANGE!! Thank you for this great gateau recipe Hilda. I absolutely adore fruit in bakes, citrus even more. The cake was FAB … even though the story of my life remains the same. Yes indeed, power cut again; else the cake would have been much lighter. Still had a beautifully light crumb, and I poured fresh orange juice over it S L O W L Y. The gateau absorbed it all, but for about 2-3 tbsps.

It’s a wonderful recipe and I will be making it again soon. Served a few slices with homemade fresh mascarpone. It was drooliciously good both ways. Was happy to have an opportunity to use my oven dried orange slices for the top…tee hee! Even sprinkled some orange sugar on top right after pouring the juice.

I’ve made a jar of orange sugar by rubbing orange zest into vanilla sugar, and letting it dry in a very very low oven. I store it in a jar with a vanilla bean, and the flavour matures beautifully over time. It’s got a slight bitter tinge to taste, but is nice on top of bakes and in cookies. Got the idea from basil sugar from Ilva @ Lucillian, and it’s also something Alice Medrich uses in her recipes like Citrus Olive Oil Cakes etc.

Gâteau à l’Orange
Adapted from here
4 oranges
Zest of 1 orange
100 g of softened butter
100 g sugar
150 g flour
3 eggs, separated
11/2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp rhum
1 Tbsp orange essence (or Cointreau)
1 pinch of salt
Butter (to grease the pan)

Method:
Heat the oven to 170C.

Grease a 6″ cake pan, and line the bottom with parchment
In a bowl, beat the sugar and softened butter together.
Add the yolks one by one to the butter and sugar mixture, taking care to mix each one thoroughly before adding the next one and beat until you obtain a smooth batter.
Add the rhum and the orange essence/Cointreau and mix again.
Mix the flour and baking powder together and add it to the batter by “raining it in”. Mix well.
Cut and juice the oranges. Pour half of the resulting juice in the batter, add the zest and mix.
Beat the whites until firm with the pinch of salt. Add them delicately to the batter.
Pour the batter into the pan and bake for an hour, checking the coloration from time to time. It will be dark orange when done.
Pour the other half of the juice into the cake while it’s still warm. Take care not to pour it too fast and not to let the cake cool too much before you do so. You may find that if you don’t get the timing right, your whole cake will not have juice in it (as in it may have two different textures and have a visible line halfway down where the juice stopped penetrating).
Serves 8.

♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥

This delicious comforting citrusy gateau is off to Sweet Comforts: Sugar High Friday #61 being hosted this month by Kate @ A Merrier World.
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Published by

Deeba @ PAB

About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.

46 thoughts on “Gâteau à l’Orange … Orange you glad I made this?”

  1. Vindee, I am ALWAYS glad when you bake. Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous, gateau! It is a wintry grey day in Minnesota but your photos are really like rays of light! How did you do the outlines in the last picture? It's a great effect!

  2. I love love ornage cakes too. There is something very comforting in them. And this one looks so so yumm.
    I love your idea of making your own orange sugar.

  3. That sounds heavenly, I love orange flavoured things. Your pictures as ever are beautiful. I wish they sold oranges with the leaves on here but you only see them occasionally with clementines near Christmas.

  4. oh my this is a heavenly delight! deeba i am so making this. i have a lovely orange cake from my mum's recipe on the blog and love it so much that every time i think orange i go for that. but i need to try this.

  5. Oh Deeba, this is simply gorgeous and I can't wait to make it. I'm a Florida girl at heart and, like Persians, we grew up suffused with citrus. This cake is perfect! Gorgeous photos.

  6. Fabulous Deeba. Such a great idea of drizzling orange juice over it – must try that! I was going to do something similar with an orange syrup for my muffcakes, but I opted for lemon icing instead. Definitely trying this recipe though – yummo!

  7. I love the gorgeous orange-ness! 🙂 And I think it was brilliant of you to pour orange juice on the cake – must have made it even more orangey. I can imagine how good this would taste with some mascarpone… mmm.

  8. Oh dear GOD!! I am speechless!!! and that's saying something ..I am hardly ever devoid of it :DD

    It's stunning.. and now I know y the hub loves lemons!!!! DUH!

  9. Beautiful cake. In California it is citrus season and being a local girl, I adore citrus of any kind. I love the idea of orange sugar and as soon as it stops raining I'm going to pick some oranges and get to work.
    Mimi

  10. Deeba, I love everything about this cake and images are just stunning!! 🙂

    Have a good day, Margot

  11. Ooooh, Thank you, Deeba! For the luscious, scrumptious, gorgeous cake AND for the orange/vanilla sugar instructions! I think the sugar would be really good in a cup of Constant Comment tea along with a slice of this cake. Your photographs are absolutely stunning ~ but when aren't they? I've made orange quick breads, but not cake. This recipe sounds simply delectable. *hugs* Dani

  12. I love the way you've worked in so many orange elements into one recipe! The orange sugar sounds great.

  13. I love citrus desserts too and this one looks fabulous! Another gorgeous post! I often brag about having a friend in India and your delicious blog!

  14. My my my!!!! am completely bowled over by this gauteau!!! what a knockout cake… some times eyes wanna get appealed before mouth tastes the food n this is in such a category.. surely a thing of beauty.. n of course that speaks volume about ur photography skill.. u r really talented Deeba…. God bless…Gonna make this over the weekend. By the way, can i do it without rhum?

    Rgds
    Twinsy

  15. Simply the right choice for the current orange season in Thailand! Gateau a l'Orange will be a knockout of my January baking!

    Thanks for sharing!

    Sawadee from bangkok,
    Kris

  16. It's gorgeous Deeba, simply grand. I'm about to post mine as well but I left it plain Jane, I'll tell readers the gussied up version is on your blog. =) And regarding the size, it can definitely be a very flat cake, so you can do it in an 8" springform. Mine is usually about an inch and a half high so it's not a high kind of cake. Love me some oranges. 😉

  17. It's such a pretty cake! I love citrus, and I have a lot of it in my house right now. This looks like a perfect use for some of it!

  18. What a beautiful cake, you presented it so lovely! I would love some of this. HOw about of slice of this for a slice of my clementine cake???
    Have a wonderful weekend daaaahling.
    *kisses* HH

  19. Beautiful! Your photos are stunning and so full of life! Orange is my favourite colour too. My KA is tangerine orange and makes me very happy.
    Delicious gateau!

  20. Marvelous recipe, Deeba! So moist and so sunny looking! (Think I will add the Cointreau!)
    Great job with the photos!

  21. Wow–this looks so refreshing and tasty. I am intrigued. We have been getting some really juicy oranges in our veg box lately, so I could maybe make this next week. Thanks for the idea!

  22. it's beautiful deeba and your 'art direction' in this post is gorgeous. i love all the photography. the idea of making an orange zest flavoured sugar is great, it could also be a nice gift. i love this post. x shayma
    ps the adapted from here link isnt working.

  23. Hi Deeba, this cake looks so nice. This is exactly the type of thing I love with some hot tea. I have little oranges like that growing in my neighborhood. I just noticed a nice lemon cake on another blog, so now I have to choose (yikes)! I might have to go with yours due to the abundance of oranges hanging from the trees… Thanks, Cam

  24. Oh this looks very pretty, you can almost smell and taste.It seems like it would be a great dessert with all the seafood recipes I have come across lately. You always have a great variety of recipes. I really enjoy your blog.

    Erika

  25. deeba the cake looks delicious! and the season is perfect for some oranges in everything:)

  26. This is one gorgeous cake… it really brightened up a cold rainy day to see those lovely photos… and orange cake… perfect!

  27. Whoops, thats another SHF I missed 🙁 Oh well… Love this cake – citrus fruit are my favourite. I am totally in love with your citrus sugar – such a simple and clever idea 🙂

  28. Hi Deeba,
    I m really loving your cakes recipes.cooking food is my passion. I love baking n I love presenting my food. I really appreciate people who are passionate about cooking.
    Thanks
    Sarika Gulati

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