Clementine Creamsicle Cake

A dump-it-in-the-food-processor recipe that brightens up this dreary winter.

Hello strangers. I know, I know. I haven’t been consistent lately. I will get back in the saddle, I promise. Between now and early summer, things might be hit-or-miss as I work on a few other projects, but I haven’t forgotten about this lovely way of sneaking into your inboxes. I have a recipe for you today, but first some other stuff you shuold know about.

Photo credit: E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune

Where have I been?

• I shared my beloved Citrus Pavlova Recipe in the Chicago Tribune. I whip up a variation on this recipe every year for Valentine’s Day. It’s a keeper.

• My treatise on German Bread appeared in TRINK Magazine, wherein I opine that German-speaking Europe has the world’s best bread and best bakeries. (Oh, and Dame Prue Leith agrees with me.) There’s also a wonderful essay on German food and a recipe for Gulasch by

  Luisa Weiss
  in the same issue.

• A piece about why food folks, often behind the stove, need to get out and network, appeared in Plate Magazine. I offer some tips on where and how to make networking work best for you—even if you loathe the idea of it.

• Speaking of networking, I met the one-and-only

  Nicola Lamb
  , author of the iconic
  Kitchen Projects
  newsletter and the must-have book Sift. What a treat to hear her musings on her writing and to meet one of my baking and writing idols in person.

• I read The Bread Machine Book,

  Lukas Volger
  ’s newest release. The first loaf of bread I ever made came out of a bread machine, and look what happened to me. I got hooked on baking. Lukas turns out a tome that finally shows what these machines can do—from simple, to sweet, to sourdough. I’m itching to bake from it!

• I snagged a sneak peek at

  John Birdsall
  ’s forthcoming book What is Queer Food? It’s an exquisite, engaging romp alongside queer American culinary characters—some familiar and some new-to-me, and all of them fabulous. Pre-order your copy now!

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Clementine Creamsicle Cake

Making a cake with a whole citrus always intrigued me. These whole orange/lemon/tangerine/clementine recipes reemerge into the zeitgeist every winter. I first heard about this genre of cake from Nigella Lawson, who got it via Claudia Rodin (who probably got it from someone else). I've made their versions of the cake before, but I find that using only almond flour gives it a mushy mouthfeel that I cannot abide. Instead of boiling the clementines like the Domestic Goddess, I employ her beloved “meecro-wah-vay” to soften the fruit. I'm testing recipes at full throttle for my cookbook, so I needed something as easy as possible.

Honestly, I should not have been futzing with new recipes, but the muses spoke to me, and I drafted a hypothesis recipe for this concept, piecing together recipes from here and there. I felt lazy, so I chucked everything in the food processor and was overjoyed with the result. Miraculously, it came out nearly perfect on the first try. Washing the food processor is the hardest part of this recipe.

I wanted a bright pop of citrus but also craved something with an intensely vanilla flavor—so here you have it. This cake isn’t tangy citrus but soft, sunny tropical. It’s giving Orange Julius. It’s giving velvety Creamsicle dreams.

Makes one gloriously cracked 9-inch loaf cake.

Takes about an hour, plus cooling time, and it’s best made the day ahead.

Yes, these egg yolks were the color of clementines. #nofilter

200 g clementines or mandarins (ideally organic or unsprayed), whole*

4 large eggs, room temperature

54 g (4 Tablespoons) butter, melted

50 g (1/4 cup) olive oil

250 g (1 1/4 cups) sugar

120 g (1 1/4 cups) almond flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Seeds from 1 vanilla bean (or 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract)

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

180 g (1 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour

* One of my cakes used 3 clementines measuring almost 200 g. The other tests required me to slice a bit off (skin and flesh) of a fourth clementine.

Heat the oven to 325F with a rack in the middle of the oven. Butter my favorite 9x4x4 loaf pan and line it with a sling of parchment paper.

Put the whole clementines in a microwave-safe bowl and cover with a plate. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Remove from the microwave, uncover, and let cool for at least 5 minutes. Drain the juice from the bottom of the bowl.

Dump the clementines in a food processor and wiz them for about 20 seconds. Add the eggs and process for another 20 seconds. Then add the butter, oil, sugar, almond flour, baking powder, vanilla, and salt. Process for about 5 full seconds until combined, scrape down the side of the bowl, add the all-purpose flour, then pulse 3-5 times, just until the flour is just combined. (We add the flour last so that we don't overwork the gluten.)

A glamorous batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 325F until domed and cracked, deeply golden brown, firm to the touch in the center, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, about 60-70 minutes.

I love a nice crack.

Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan, then remove from the pan and wrap tightly in plastic wrap or other airtight wrapping. If you can bear the wait, let the cake sit overnight. The crust softens, and the flavors blossom.

You can leave out the vanilla for a simple, delicious clementine cake. If so, I'd suggest adding 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of orange flower water for a bit of complexity.

Happy Baking,
Martin