... creative grapefruit juices, that is. Summer looked like it might finally be setting in when I had a dinner party to bake for, and the warmer air and sunnier skies made me crave citrus. I remembered that some time back a friend had suggested that I try making blood orange curd, but as I wasn't able to find any of the fruit in stores and the juice was quite expensive, this will have to remain an experiment for another day, perhaps when there's a sale on. Still, I was looking for something different, and it occurred to me that while lemon and orange are go-to citruses for baking (and of course key lime if you're lucky enough to be able to get your hands on those little green gems - I miss key lime pie), grapefruit is rather underused. I wanted to bake something simple, so had already thought about making a bundt cake (no messy layers), and once I decided on grapefruit the cake baking in my mind became a grapefruit pound cake. Throw in some poppy seeds, and not only do you get added texture to the grapefruit twist, but also alliteration in 'pink grapefruit poppy seed pound cake'.
For the cake, I used this Epicurious recipe - substituting grapefruit zest of course - and doubled it because I like my bundt cakes to be tall (I used a 10" pan that's 4" deep). To finish it, I made a grapefruit glaze following Martha's recipe for the lemon equivalent for this cake. I used pre-squeezed juice for the glaze, and since I don't have a strainer I removed some of the pulp by running the juice through a pour-over paper coffee filter. I'm not sure I'd recommend doing that; it wasn't terribly effective, and I think a pulpy glaze would've been just fine. I thought I was being pretty clever with my combination, which is never a thought to have. I say this because yesterday I stumbled across this recipe from BBC Good Food and for a split second thought I was losing my mind. Ok two seconds, or the time it took me to check the publication date...
For once in my life, I'd actually finished the cake with time to spare, so while I was waiting I took my remaining grapefruit and peeled it with a paring knife to make a rose for the centre of the cake. I essentially already knew how to do this, but nevertheless found this youtube tutorial to be a useful demonstration - it's probably best watched with the sound off if you want to avoid a sexist anecdote. To hold the rose together for travel (I didn't want to insert the rose before pouring the glaze, which I did just before serving), I pinned it with a couple toothpicks.
Continuing with the theme of simple, summery cakes, this week I tried this Martha Stewart recipe for strawberry cake. The idea of baking a cake in a pie dish was weirdly appealing, and as with the bundt cake - no layers! I've also been scoping out the ruby-red berries that have been appearing in the market lately, and this recipe seemed as good an excuse as any for taking some home. For as beautiful as they are in the box, I thought they'd look even better arranged on top of a sugary cushion of cake... and perhaps they would have if they hadn't all sunk to the bottom.
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| pre-bake |
The only alteration I made to the recipe was multiplying it one and a half times to fill my deep dish pan. As it turns out, the other alteration I should have made was flouring the cut sides of the berries before arranging them on the cake. I'm not certain that this would have kept them from sinking entirely, but I suspect it might have made a difference; further investigation is warranted, and welcome considering how well the cake came out despite this small snafu. It was an excellent afternoon pick-me-up with ice cream and coffee, but would be equally great for dessert, or even breakfast...
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