Last week was another long shoot week. I had several long days and a nasty bug that hit at the end of the week...so not much happened in the way of beautiful cooking. Also, the weather has been so cold and dismal here that it's been a bit tough to get inspired, I have to admit.
Thankfully, today provided a much needed break in the dreary, rainy days we've been enduring here in Atlanta. The sun has been blissfully shining and it's nice enough to have the windows open. It's been nice spending the afternoon in some quiet sunbeams & doing some baking. I've had these incredible blood oranges sitting around since I posted the salad I incorporated them in. Fearing they'd go to waste, I made this simple blood orange upside down cake today.
I have to say - it's stunning. The blood oranges look like fireworks or flowers on top of the cake. The cake part comes together really quickly using ordinary pantry ingredients. If you want your cake to be less sweet, like I do, use grapefruit juice in your batter. If you want to amp the sugar up, use orange juice. I like the bitterness of the grapefruit juice with the blood oranges. A little powdered sugar or not-too-sweet whipped cream would be the perfect compliment to this cake.
Blood Orange Upside Down Cake - serves 8
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup grapefruit or orange juice
- 1/2 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 4 medium blood oranges, peeled and cut into wheels about 1/4" thick and large seeds removed
- In another small bowl, mix together the brown sugar and sugar in small bowl. You're trying to eliminate any large chunks of brown sugar and have an even mix of sugars.
- In a separate bowl combine the egg, grapefruit/orange juice, vanilla extract, olive oil and add 1/2 cup of the combined sugar mixture. Stir in the dry ingredients in small batches until batter is well mixed but not overworked.
- In a buttered & floured 8-inch spring-form cake pan, sprinkle the rest of the remaining 1/2 cup of combined sugar in the bottom of the pan. Arrange the blood orange slices in bottom of the prepared pan.
Pour the batter over the oranges and place in the oven.
- Bake in oven for 45 minutes until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle of cake comes out clean. Allow cake to cool for 30 minutes before inverting the pan on a large plate or cake stand. Serve with a dusting of powdered sugar, lightly sweetened whipped cream or ice cream.
