I’m doling out several recipes today, ladies and gentlemen. I’m in a good mood thanks to another successful organization day yesterday. I went for the kitchen and dining room with gusto. I swept, dusted, mopped and arranged the cabinets while dancing. I love to dance. I adore music as much as food. (Greg and I both are musically inclined instrument players and I was also in choir for as long as I can remember.) I am infamous for putting together playlists. Everything is better with music and food. I don’t usually make such sweeping statements that use words such as ‘everything’ but for this, I do.
I came across this recipe after searching for something to do with my enormous collection of oranges. My first inclination was to make candied orange zest with dark chocolate (and I still want to) but it will take a day or two to dry. Then, I saw this recipe for orange yogurt cake with orange cream at butter and sugar which was adapted from Ina Garten’s recipe using lemons. I also adapted this to fit my taste or rather, the ingredients that I had.
Orange Yogurt Cake with Orange Cream
Serves 6
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
zest of 2 oranges
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup canola oil
Preheat oven to 350 and grease your cake pan choice (I made half the recipe and placed in individual cake pans).
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into bowl. In another bowl, whisk yogurt, sugar, eggs, zest and vanilla. Whisk the flour mixture into other ingredients and then add oil, just fold it in. Pour into prepped cake pan and bake for 50 minutes until tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool. I recommend cutting cake in two and adding a cream layer.
Orange Cream
Ingredients:
1 cup heavy whipping cream (or already made whipping cream such as Cool Whip)
2 tbsp confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 orange
Whisk all ingredients together until it becomes stiff, might take some time. Refrigerate for 20-30 minutes and place on top before serving cake.
This is where the second recipe comes in because I had leftover orange cream and strawberry ice cream. Below is the strawberry ice cream recipe (from my Cuisinart Pure Indulgence handbook) but almost any ice cream would work great for the smoothie.
Strawberry Ice Cream:
Makes about 7 cups
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups fresh strawberries, sliced
2 tbsp lemon juice
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup whole milk
1 3/8 cups heavy whipping cream
¾ tsp vanilla extract
Pre-freeze your ice cream bowl for as long as directed.
In a bowl, place strawberries and lemon juice and half of sugar, stir gently and macerate for 2 hours. This is where I change the directions and just mash the mixture to a pulp. In another bowl, mix milk and remaining sugar. Stir in heavy cream, strawberry mix and vanilla. Pour the mix into the ice cream maker bowl and mix until thick 20-25 minutes and mine required more freezing in the freezer (duh) for another hour at least.
Combine the ice cream and orange cream in a blender to make an easy smoothie. I’m guessing the ice cream would be great with the orange cake too. Food for thought.