Keeping My Promise
Well, I promised I would post the recipe for the Orange Bundt Cake that played the supporting role in my AFAM Peaches entry, and the foodblogging community did not let me forget that.
One of the weekly magazines in South Africa has a column where readers send in their favorite recipes. They run it through their test kitchen, and if it works, they publish it. After they have collected a good number of these, they publish them in a volume of "champion recipes." A few years ago they selected the best from those volumes, and published "the best of the champion recipes:" Die Beste van Huisgenoot se Wenresepte, edited by Annette Human.
The basis for this recipe comes from that book, but over the years we have adapted it to our tastes. It is basically a "never-fail" recipe, rich and moist without being too dense. Its appearance is rustic - which makes it beautiful to my eyes, just like the unevenness of kadhi is part of its appeal.
If you insist you can certainly ice it, but to me that is gilding the lily. Serve it as it is, or make a simple syrup to which you add the juice of an orange and a couple of drops of orange extract to pour over it, serve it with cream or ice cream, add some fruit or some fruit syrup - the options are many.
Note: The recipe scales really well. Our bundt pan is very large, so we double the recipe. After the first 30 minutes in the oven we check, and do 15 minutes more. That usually is enough, but if not, we add five minutes at a time.
Comments (8)
Love the orange bundt cake.
I have been looking for fresh peaches but in vain. So have decided i will have to do with the canned ones. Even though i would have preferred the fresh ones.
Posted by Happy Cook | October 18, 2007 10:20 AM
It is beautiful, Sivani!
The orange essence must have imparted such a nice flavor.
BTW, how much time does it take you to do the recipe cards when you post something?
Doesn't this take longer than just writing it?
Whatever it is, this is such a cool thing!:-)
Posted by TBC | October 18, 2007 2:26 PM
i really love orange cakes and even more when combined with chocolate...the cake looks awesome..light and fluffy
Posted by Rajitha | October 18, 2007 2:56 PM
@Happy Cook: Have you checked the frozen foods section of your local supermarket?
Here in the US it is with the desserts and frozen pie crusts.
Posted by Sivani
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October 18, 2007 2:57 PM
@TBC:It took a bit longer in the beginning until I got the hang of it. Now I think it is easier.
I use an Excel spreadsheet.
I start off with the list of ingredients, just like a standard recipe, except I might change the order so that the stuff that are used together follow one another directly in the list.
Then, instead of saying: "Take the butter, sugar, orange extract and vanilla extract and cream them until light and smooth" I just select the cells adjacent to them, hit the Merge button and type "cream them until light and smooth."
The rest of the table is constructed exactly the same way. Select the cells adjacent to those things or groups of things on which you want to operate, hit Merge and type in the instructions without need to retype the list of ingredients that will be used for that step.
It helps a lot when I take out a recipe to cook from as well: just glancing at it I can see which things have to be done in which groups so that I can structure my time properly e.g. it doesn't make sense to make the tempering, then start peeling and cutting the vegetables.
When I am done typing the recipe, I put in the lines and the title, turn off Excel's gridlines and take a screenshot. I save this as a .png file and post it.
Posted by Sivani
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October 18, 2007 3:05 PM
That's such a lovely looking cake.
Posted by sunita | October 19, 2007 2:00 AM
Thanks, Sivani, for typing out the entire process for me :-)
Posted by TBC | October 20, 2007 11:32 AM
@sunita: rustic, but delicious
@TBC: just for you ;-)
Posted by Sivani
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October 23, 2007 11:17 AM