Blood orange season is my favorite. There’s nothing quite nice as a fresh red-colored juice to go with the cold weatherweather.
This February, I was spoiled rotten by everyone. One of the perks of just having a baby is people pampering you all the time. Naturally, my favorite citrus fruit was everywhere – in a bowl on the kitchen counter, in the fridge, and *surprise*, in a cake we made using Jamie Oliver’s recipe on this link. This cake is a special one. The mix of flavors was pretty new to us, what between the chocolate flavor and the strong blood orange taste. Every bite felt like a revelation that new flavor combinations will never cease to exist.
Blood oranges. In a cake. Using Jamie Oliver’s recipe. How amazing is this kitchen situation? Here’s the copied recipe from the Fifteen website with some notes and advice.
Jamie Oliver’s Blood Orange, Ricotta and Chocolate Cake
Ingredients (for 8 persons)
For the sauce
6 blood oranges (zest and juice)
200g caster sugar
30ml Cointreau
For the cake
2 blood oranges (peeled and thinly sliced)
300g ricotta
300g caster sugar
4 free range eggs
250g butter, extra for greasing
300g soft flour
150g cocoa powder
100g dark chocolate chunks
Mascarpone (to serve)
How to make it
Make the sauce:
1. Place all the ingredients in a small heavy-based saucepan and slowly bring to the boil.
2. Lower the heat and simmer gently until reduced to a thick but pourable consistency.
Make the cake:
1. Pre heat the oven to 170C
2. Cover the bottom of a cake tin with baking parchment and grease well
3. Carefully dip your orange slices into the orange sauce, then arrange on the bottom of the cake tin. Pour a little more of the sauce on top until you have an even covering and put in the fridge to cool
4. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and mix until nice and fluffy in texture. Now add the eggs, one at a time, and mix together. Mix in the ricotta, then fold all of the dry ingredients into the mixture
5. Scrape the cake mixture into the cooled cake tin and bake for about 15 minutes. Check by pushing a skewer into the centre of the cake If it comes out dry, its ready; if not, leave it in the oven and check again regularly until it is cooked
6. Whilst the cake is cooling, re-heat the remaining sauce. Turn out your cake, upside down, onto a serving plate. Pour over the warm sauce and serve with a big dollop of mascarpone
My notes and advice
- Choose small to medium oranges and make sure the slices look really good as they’ll be the face of your cake
- Note that we only had 250 g of ricotta so we cross-multiplied to get the proportion of the other ingredients /ex: 150 g cocoa powder for 300 g of ricotta, how much for 250 g of ricotta? 250 x 150/300)
- Try not to discard the mascarpone as the cake is very rich in flavors and the mascarpone helps balance it all
- The baking parchment is important here because it will help the oranges stay in place as you flip the cake over
- Be careful not to over mix
