I Just Put My Fresh Orange Sponge Cake Into The Oven To Bake- Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice Is The Secret Ingredient

I love orange flavor in pastry. It's generally the most overlooked fruit flavor.

look who is back.

It's been many a year since I've had sponge cake. Orange sounds dreamy.

Where's the McCunting recipe OP

I don’t get Greg vibes from OP.

At Christmas my mother used to make Orange Blossoms, very small muffins soaked with an orange/brown sugar syrup. My mother would make them and then store in a big tin. The longer they sat the better they were. I think she used a lot of orange liqueur in the syrup.

Apparently the recipe is from Helen Corbitt, who ran The Zodiac Room in the Dallas Neiman Marcus. She was a proto-Julia Child and invented poppyseed dressing, flowerpot cake, Texas caviar, and many other well-known dishes which were the first flush of modern food in most southern homes.

Helen was a real character and would be a good candidate for DL fav status. One time she supposedly got so mad at her staff she fired them en masse and sent them home immediately. Just as they all walked out, she remembered she had a restaurant full of people expecting food so she called security and had them block the doors and make the staff return to their work.

Thanks R6!!!

R6- That sounds like a Martha Stewart type of thing to do.

R8, it does but at least Helen was honest about it. She had a sign in the kitchen which read:

[quote] “This is the kitchen of Helen Corbitt. I am the Boss! If you don’t believe it . . . Start Something!”

You couldn’t be any clearer than that! I suspect she might have been a lesbian. She never married.

Would love to see a pic of the cake-sounds great.

I made an orange butter to go with dinner rolls (Thanksgiving). I mixed a very fine zest of the orange peel (using that part of the grater that looks like it's been ice-picked to death). Then, mix some sugar into the butter.

I had it at a restaurant and liked it, so I recreated it.

R10- This one I made in early September. I took a photo of the Sponge cake last night but it came out blurry.

Orange juice is too diluted to add much flavor without using huge quantities. Orange ZEST works much better for adding orange flavor.

Looks so good. Any ‘’sweet’’ diversion from the political drama is welcome.

R13- This recipe calls for one tablespoon of orange zest- which I put in along with the fresh squeezed orange juice.

A secret I learned from an old cook was that you can really amp up the orange flavor you get from your orange zest in sweet recipes by mixing the sugar from the recipe and the zest and whir them up in the food processor or the mixing bowl before you cream the butter and the sugar together. It gets the orange oil out of the zest and attached to the sugar and it permeates the cake better.

R16- I might try that next time but this cake does not have any butter in it.

I’m sorry, I was confused. Where I’m from they call them Angel’s Food cakes and I always think of sponge as that dryer European type.

I like the Sicilian orange cake with an entire orange, rind and all, ground up in it.

Orange juice is the secret ingredient in orange cake? You don’t say?

R20- It's not the fact that it's orange juice . The secret that makes it so good is the fact that it's FRESH squeezed orange juice.

Ugh, this shit again.

[quote] The secret that makes it so good is the fact that it's FRESH squeezed orange juice.

Ina Garten is now posting on DL.

Make sure you use good, quality butter and organic oranges and buttermilk!

Gerg

And Le Creuset cookware, whenever possible!!!

Excuse me-Sicilian use the entire orange? How is this a thing?

R27, the whole orange cake has been known by some for awhile. I think Marcella Hazan is the way it got to mainstream America.

I think that entire orange cake tastes good in spite of, not because of, all that pith and membrane. I bet it's even better without all that pith and membrane.

Is there another kind of orange juice?

Where's the fucking recipe??

The secret is always freshly squeezed ingredients!

R30- As opposed to using 6 tablespoons of the Tropicana orange juice from the half gallon carton.

Use Tang in a pinch.

r34 or Crystal Light!

I highly suggest you moisten it with an orange zest infused simple syrup. While the cake is still warm, apply it with a silicone brush and finally, shove it up your ass.

Remember hot syrup cold cake or cold syrup hot cake… and hot ass, always.

This is a great recipe! I had an aunt from Sicily & when she'd visit us, or we'd visit her, this was always made every other morning to have with morning coffee. She'd get up at 6 am & start baking. (this is essentially the same recipe) A bygone practice & woman I truly miss. Cin Cin Aunty Anna Banana!!!!

Italians LOVE icing sugar. They put it on everything.

I need a ciggy after OP's vivid and coquettish description of her cakes. Brava!