Categories
Cakes The Book

41. Orange-Poppy Seed Cake p.706

Sorry, no recipe.

I made this cake for a friend’s birthday party. The best way I can describe it is as a brunchy coffee-cake dressed up for dinner. During the day it works down at the espresso shack as that cute poppy seed loaf in the counter. It’s moist and rich with sour cream, and has a very pleasant fluffy but yielding texture. The cake has 2 tsp of orange zest mixed in, which are understated during the day, but they’ll sparkle at night.

After work the cake turns it up for an evening on the town. Most of the citrus flavour comes from the Grand-Marnier orange juice syrup it slips on. Paired with a flirty dollop of creme-fraiche, and a burst of berries to make the outfit pop it’s ready to go anywhere you’d care to take it.

This cake was simple to put together, it did require making a meringue, and some folding to keep the airy texture I was looking for, but it’s basically a breeze. Once the cake is baked little holes are poked all over and it’s bathed in the Grand Marnier syrup.

Grand Marnier is my favorite digestif, so I’m always happy to have it show up in desserts. The zip of the creme fraice was nice, but it was a touch heavy and coating. Serving this a la mode, or with whipped cream might have worked, or better yet with nothing at all. I had intended to top it with berries, but when I made it good looking berries were not to be found. No great loss as this cake stands up all on it’s own.

Categories
Fish and Shellfish The Book

4. Fish en Papillote With Tomatoes and Olives p. 302

the recipe

This was less than the sum of it’s parts. A lot of good things went in: a couple nice halibut fillets, tomatoes, olives, red pepper flakes, orange zest, sage, wrapped and baked in parchment. What came out looked pretty, but tasted off. The individual flavors were good, but they didn’t meld particularly well. There was way more zest than I would have liked, and something unexpected and unpleasant in the sage-olive-fish combination. The fish was also a bit underdone, and you can’t put a papillote back together again (I finished in the microwave, but it didn’t help matters much). I think this one was a lot better in theory than it was on the plate. If I were to redo this I might replace the halibut with red snapper, and switch out the sage for thyme or basil. Overall there’s just way too much going on without much balance. There were about as many toppings as there were fish. Restraint might have improved it significantly.