I recently received two lovely food samples – olive oil from Cobram Estate and blood oranges from Limoneira. While I don’t always end up using samples for recipes, the combination of the two was inspiring. Particularly after coming home from Portugal, where olive oil and oranges are often used together in sweets, I knew I wanted to bake something. I decided they were destined for a pound cake.

I’ll be the first to admit that this is not my most original idea. A quick Google or Pinterest search for blood orange and olive oil cake will reveal dozens of beautiful photos. Some cakes are simple, others are glazed with a lovely pink frosting, and others have paper-thin slices of oranges baked on top. They were all so pretty that I couldn’t resist adding my own version to the mix.

Zesting oranges and rubbing orange zest into sugar should be a winter therapy treatment. The smell is an instant mood lifter, and takes me back to sunnier, warmer days. Like the morning we spent eating tangerines straight from the trees in a sunny courtyard in Portugal. Or the afternoon we spent at a plum blossom festival in Odawara, buying sacks of fresh clementines from every other house we passed. One day we’ll live somewhere where it’s warm enough to grow oranges, where it doesn’t snow in March. Until then, we’ll have to rely on the scent of fresh oranges to trigger our happiest memories.

This cake was a lovely surprise, gently sweet and tender. Both the orange and olive oil are subtle but the flavors are distinctly present. The pieces of blood orange interspersed throughout the cake add a pop of juicy sweetness and keep the cake moist. It’s always a sign of a good recipe when I immediately begin running through variations for next time – meyer lemon, olive oil, and rosemary? Grapefruit and star anise? This one will be a staple.

Disclosure: I used olive oil and blood orange samples provided free of charge by Cobram Estate and Limoneira to create this recipe, but I was not otherwise compensated. As usual, all opinions are my own!

Blood Orange and Olive Oil Pound Cake

Recipe adapted from Melissa Clark via the New York Times.

• 4 blood oranges (3 for cake and one for glaze/garnish)
• 3/4 cup of sugar, plus more for candying oranges
• 1/3 cup of buttermilk
• 3 large eggs
• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp orange oil (optional)
• 2/3 cup high quality extra-virgin olive oil
• 2/3 cup of powdered sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9×5 inch loaf pan with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Grate the zest from two of the blood oranges into a large bowl. Add the sugar to the bowl and use your fingers to mix the zest into the sugar. Cut one of the zested oranges in half and squeeze the juice into a liquid measuring cup – you should have about 1/3 cup of juice. Add the buttermilk to the measuring cup so that you have 2/3 cup of liquid in total. Whisk juice and buttermilk together, then pour the mixture into the sugar. Whisk until evenly combined. Add the eggs to the bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until no lumps remain. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir together until just combined. Stir in the orange oil, if using. Now add the olive oil to the batter a little bit at a time, using a spatula to fold the oil into the batter. Repeat until all of the olive oil is evenly incorporated. Set batter aside.
4. Using two of your remaining oranges (the one you zested and one of the others), cut orange segments into supremes. Do this by cutting the peel and white pith off of the outside of the oranges, then use a paring knife to carefully separate the orange flesh from the translucent membrane of each segment. If necessary, break the orange supremes into pieces that are about 1/4 inch big. Once you have supremed both the oranges, add the orange supreme pieces to the batter. Fold a few times just to incorporate the oranges into the batter.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, using a spatula to distribute the batter around the pan if necessary. Bake the cake for 55 minutes, until golden on top and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then lift out by the parchment paper and cool completely on a cooling rack.
6. To make the glaze, cut the last blood orange in half. Squeeze the juice from one half of the orange into a small bowl. Place the confectioner’s sugar into a small bowl and whisk until it is free of lumps. Whisk in the blood orange juice a little at a time until the glaze drips thickly from the whisk when lifted out of the bowl. Cut the other half of the orange into paper thin slices. Pour the glaze evenly over the top of the cooled cake, letting it drip down the sides onto the parchment paper. If desired, candy the orange slices according to this method – this will make the orange slices tender enough to eat in addition to a pretty garnish. Arrange the orange slices on the top of the glaze and serve.

The post Blood Orange and Olive Oil Pound Cake appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

This Sunday Dinner post is a big one – I’m not even entirely sure where to start. There’s the obvious, of course, that it was for our Valentine’s Day celebration, so it had to be special and a little bit decadent. There’s the fact that we prepared it during a blizzard, the third big storm in what feels like a never-ending chain of snow and white skies and freezing temperatures – a winter so beyond our imaginations that our city is stuck somewhere between awe, deep frustration, and total apathy. There’s the coffee-crusted duck, the centerpiece of the meal, that we lifted from the menu at Bouchard in Newport, where we spent a wonderful evening last weekend, dining in quiet elegance before slipping back to a room with a fireplace and a four-poster bed, where I wanted to stay forever. There’s the champagne we popped last night, the leftovers of which we unexpectedly took to a blizzard brunch around the corner – because day-drinking and eating waffles is a pretty good way to spend a blizzard. There’s the chocolate espresso layer cake, which we ate thick slices of in bed this morning with our morning coffee, our windows completed whited out by the snow whirling outside. There’s the chanterelle bisque, made from chanterelles we foraged in the middle of the summer, a time so green and warm and damp that it seems like it happened in another lifetime. These recipes have so many bits and pieces of memories tucked inside them it’s hard to sort out a clear thread between them – and now of course they will bring back to us the Valentine’s Day Blizzard of 2015, another weekend spent together grateful for a quiet and warm house in which to hide away and dream of spring.

The menu we made for this dinner is wintery, earthy, and elegant all at the same time, with rich flavors tied one to the next: blood orange, endive, chanterelle, chestnut, coffee, brandy, chocolate. Brilliantly colored blood orange mimosas spiked with Campari and honey. A salad of bitter endive and radicchio topped with blood orange slices, goat gouda, and toasted hazelnuts. A velvety bisque of roasted chestnuts and chanterelles. A gorgeous duck breast, coated in coffee and drizzled with rich brandy-balsamic sauce. And a cake – two fat layers of chocolate cake spread thickly with chocolate-espresso buttercream. Everything turned out beautifully, and although there are certainly a lot of components, it was doable to prepare everything in one afternoon, and still sit down with enough energy to enjoy the meal and each other’s company.

The Menu
Blood Orange Mimosa
Endive and Blood Orange Salad
Chanterelle and Chestnut Bisque
Coffee-Crusted Duck Breast with Brandy-Balsamic Sauce
Chocolate Espresso Layer Cake

Past Sunday Dinners:

May 26, 2013: Coffee-and-Chile Rubbed Strip Steaks with Chimichurri Sauce; Charred and Smoky Belgian Endives; Oven-Roasted Potatoes; Strawberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream

July 1, 2013: Strawberry-Lime Agua Fresca; Smashed Pea, Dill, and Feta Crostini; Chilled Asparagus Soup with Meyer Lemon Yogurt; Mustard Spaetzle with Mushrooms; Ricotta Bavarese with Red-Wine Poached Rhubarb

October 28, 2013: Braised Lamb Shanks with Gremolata; Creamy Polenta with Fresh Corn and Blue Cheese; Roasted Brussels Sprouts; Classic Apple Pie

March 31, 2014: Fried Halloumi with Spring Veggies and Strawberry-Basil Gastrique; French Gnocchi with Watercress Sauce; Strawberry-Rhubarb Meringue Pots

August 31, 2014: Roasted Garlic, Ricotta, and Maple-Roasted Cherry Tomato Crostini; Eggplant and Pesto Napoleons; Maple Mixed-Berry Pie

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Blood Orange Mimosa

Serves 2.

• 1/2 c. freshly squeezed blood orange juice (from about 2 oranges)
• 1 1/2 oz. Campari
• 1 TBS honey
• chilled Prosecco or Champagne

1. Whisk together blood orange juice, Campari, and honey until honey is dissolved. Divide between two champagne flutes and top with prosecco or champagne. Stir gently with a long handled spoon or small whisk. Serve immediately.

Endive and Blood Orange Salad

Serves 4.

• 1 small head of radicchio
• 1 large Belgian endive
• 3 blood oranges
• 1/4 c. hazelnuts, chopped and lightly toasted in a dry pan
• 2 oz. thinly sliced goat gouda or other goat cheese
• 2 TBS champagne vinegar
• 1/4 c. olive oil
• sea salt and pepper to taste

1. Remove and discard the outer leaves from the radicchio and cut out the thick core at the bottom. Roughly chop or shred the radicchio and place in a bowl. Remove the outer leaves from the endive. Slice into thin rounds and add to the bowl with the radicchio. Toss the two vegetables together to evenly combine.
2. Peel the oranges. Juice one of the oranges so that you have 1/2 cup of juice. Slice or supreme the remaining 2 oranges and set aside.
3. Assemble the salads by dividing the radicchio mixture between four plates. Top each with several pieces of blood orange, a spoonful of the toasted hazelnuts, and a few slices of the goat gouda. To make the dressing, whisk together the blood orange juice, champagne vinegar and olive oil until well combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper and drizzle over the salads. Serve immediately.

Chanterelle and Chestnut Bisque

Serves 2-3.

• 2 TBS butter
• 1/3 c. finely diced onion
• 2 c. fresh chanterelles, cleaned and torn into bite-sized pieces
• sea salt and pepper to taste
• 1 c. peeled, roasted chestnut pieces
• 3 c. chicken stock
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/2 c. heavy cream

1. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the chanterelles and saute until soft and browned on the edges, about 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set several spoonfuls of the cooked chanterelles aside (for garnishing the soup).
2. Add the remaining chanterelles, chestnuts, chicken stock, and thyme to a soup pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 10-15 minutes, then remove from the heat. Spoon out the thyme stems and discard. Transfer the soup to a blender and add the heavy cream. Blend on high until very smooth. Pour into bowls and garnish with the reserved chanterelles. Serve immediately.

Coffee-Crusted Duck with Brandy Balsamic Sauce

Inspired by dinner at Bouchard. Serves 2-3

• 2 medium duck breasts, trimmed of fat
• 4 TBS freshly ground coffee beans
• 2 TBS dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 tsp chili powder
• 3 TBS butter, divided
• 2 tsp flour
• 1/4 c. brandy
• 1 TBS balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 c. stout or other dark beer

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Mix the coffee, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and chili powder together in a small bowl. Rub the mixture all over the duck breasts so they are fully coated. Melt 2 TBS butter (or duck fat, if you’d like) in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Place the duck breasts in the pan and sear for 1 minute on each side. Flip them a second time (to return to the original side) and transfer the pan to the preheated oven. Cook the breasts for 5-7 minutes, to at least an internal temperature of 130°F. Remove from the oven, transfer to a cutting board or plate and let rest for at least 5 minutes.
2. Scrape as much of the coffee grounds as you can out of the dutch oven and discard. Melt the remaining 1 TBS of butter in the dutch oven over medium heat. Add the flour and stir to make a paste, cooking for 60 seconds. Add the brandy to the pan (don’t stand over the pan as you do this, as the alcohol will evaporate rapidly and can make you quite dizzy), followed by the balsamic and the stout. Stir to make a thick sauce and cook for 2-3 minutes, until thick and syrupy. Remove from the heat. Slice the duck on the bias and serve drizzled with the brandy-balsamic sauce.

Chocolate Espresso Layer Cake

• 1 recipe of Add A Pinch’s “Best Chocolate Cake,” baked in three 6×2 inch pans for 35-40 minutes
• 1 recipe Chocolate-Espresso Flour Buttercream, recipe below

1. Once you have baked the three cake layers, turn out onto a cooling rack and let cool completely. Use a serrated knife to trim the dome from each cake so that you have flat layers. Frost the cooled cake with the buttercream, using a dot of buttercream on your cake plate to hold the cake steady. If the cake is crumbing too much as you frost, refrigerate the cake briefly before continuing to frost. Chill the frosted cake for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Chocolate-Espresso Flour Buttercream

Adapted from Serious Eats basic Flour Buttercream. Makes about 3 cups of frosting.

• 4 TBS flour
• 1 c. granulated sugar
• 2 tsp espresso powder
• 1 c. whole milk
• 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 2 sticks salted butter, softened to room temperature

1. Whisk the flour, sugar, and espresso powder together in a medium saucepan until smooth. Whisk in the milk, and place over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a low boil, whisking the entire time. As the mixture begins to boil it will thicken to a custard like consistency – still whisking, cook the custard for one minute, then remove from the heat. Add the chopped chocolate and whisk until melted. Continue whisking the custard until it has cooled to body temperature, about 5 minutes. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter until it is light and fluffy. If it is greasy, refrigerate for a few minutes to make it more firm. Add the cooled chocolate custard to the whipped butter one spoonful at a time, beating to thoroughly incorporate the custard into the butter between additions. If the frosting begins to break or separate, refrigerate for a few minutes before continuing to add the chocolate custard. Once all the custard has been incorporated into the butter, refrigerate the buttercream for 20-30 minutes before frosting your cake. If you refrigerate the buttercream for longer than 30 minutes, you will need to allow it to come back to slightly below room temperature before using.

The post Sunday Dinner: Valentine’s Day Edition // Chanterelle and Chestnut Bisque, Coffee-Crusted Duck Breast, and Chocolate Espresso Layer Cake appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.