Nearly a week ago I bought a bag of blood oranges at the local market. I had never really had one before but I remembered seeing them all over the blogosphere. So I jumped on the opportunity. Then I searched for all those recipes that were vaguely prompting me to cook and discovered that most of the ones I had seen were for things like sorbet. Hm. Here in New England we are still in the throes of winter. (Also I do not own any sort of ice cream machinery.) So then I went and raided the plethora of recipes that is Martha Stewart's website and discovered a recipe for Grapefruit Upside-Down Cake. Perfect!
I modified the recipe a bit, by which I mean I didn't actually follow the recipe but just the steps. Instead of using grapefruit I used blood oranges, normal oranges and Minneolas. The Minneolas were my favourite to peel because of the little hollow between the peel and the fruit.
Also, I am telling you all right now that I often take the lazy way out. Instead of doing the "professional chef" thing and slicing the peel off then sectioning the oranges with my knife so that there was no connective tissue, I just put down the actual sections. Yeah, it makes the cake harder to cut, but frankly, it was way easier. If you have and want to take the time to do that, go right ahead.
I even broke out the electric hand mixer one of roommate's mothers bought for us when she saw me making whipped cream by hand. Cakes are fussy, which is why there are so many muffin recipes on this blog and not cakes.
When I pulled the cake out of the oven the whole middle had sunk and the cake itself was rather more brown than I was expecting. I think I used too much brown sugar in proportion to white. I also used some whole wheat flour in the batter, so although I wasn't expecting a nice yellow, I was surprised when it came out looking the way it did.
But despite its major pitfall and unusual color, this cake was amazing. Although I'm beginning to think anything that contains butter and sugar is probably going to taste pleasant. There was a little too much butter and sugar involved in the recipe than I normally allow for, but because I'm not used to cakes and especially wanted this one to be a success, I went for it. And let me tell you, all of my roommates (and I) are glad I did.
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