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Orange Cake

My blog yesterday was mostly about my partner and his brother, their gently re-establishing contact after years of no contact. And that they would come to visit us. The fact that my partner wanted that, and that his brother was very happy that my partner had also made something special for him.

But when you get such a visit, you also want everything to be okay. My partner is especially sensitive to that. He wants to do it as well as possible, and things he makes himself are part of that, according to him. But not just homemade things, no, the things that are made yourself must be GOOD.

So when the cake I wanted to make came up, it had to be discussed as well, because that also had to be good. Otherwise, he would rather buy a cake. Now I always like to bake cake, only this time looking for a recipe was a bit more difficult. Normally my partner likes everything I think of, but now that it was also for his brother and wife, he thought something else.

With many recipes he had reservations about whether his brother would like it. Or the recipe was too simple, another one was suddenly too extensive, there was always something. Which suddenly made the search for a nice recipe much more difficult. Nevertheless, we eventually found something that made him feel good and which also became a challenge for me to make. Not because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to, but cut it straight in the middle to make 1 round cake, 2 round cakes… that can be a challenge without a cake saw. I had to do it with a large kitchen knife, and was not too sure if I could cut straight. You don't want to mess up the cake you baked so that you end up having to make crumble cake.

Because he was so critical this time, I noticed that it was actually mainly because of nerves, and because he wanted to do everything as good as possible, say perfect for his brother. Understanding where it came from made it a lot easier for me to deal with it. And to assure him that the Orange Cake I was about to make would be perfect.

The visit was scheduled for Saturday. Thursday evening we selected the final recipe, made the shopping list and on Friday my partner brought the groceries after he got home from work.

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To make this cake you will need the following:

CAKE

• 140 g butter (at room temperature)
• 200 gr sugar
• 1 packet of vanilla-flavored sugar
• pinch of salt
• 30 gr cornflour
• 3 eggs (at room temperature)
• 200 gr flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 150 ml buttermilk
• 1 orange
  
  

Butter cream:

• 250 gr butter
• 250 gr icing sugar
• 0.5 tablespoon orange zest
• 200 gr cream cheese
• Topping:
• 200 gr white caster sugar
• 250ml water
• 1 orange (organic)
• 1 tablespoon slivered almonds (toasted)
  
  
  Supplies
• mixer
• Spring Form of about 24 cm
• baking paper
  
  

The method is as follows;

• You start by making the cake batter. Mix 140 grams of butter, 200 grams of sugar, and 1 sachet of vanilla sugar to a creamy mass. Then grate the orange and when you are done with that, squeeze the orange. You can also turn this around if you find that easier. Press first and grate the empty peels. Reserve about a tablespoon of your orange zest and add the rest of the zest and orange juice to the butter mixture. Then add the eggs one at a time and mix well.
  
  

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• The next step is to mix the flour, baking powder, cornstarch and salt together in a separate bowl. Gradually add this flour mixture to the butter mixture until fully incorporated. Then add the buttermilk little by little and mix until smooth.

• Time to grease your spring form with some butter, line the bottom with baking paper and put the batter in it! Bake the orange pie for about 35 to 40 minutes at 180 degrees (convection oven) until it is cooked. And then let it cool down completely.

While my cake was baking, I was able to continue with the following preparations that would eventually complete my orange cake.

For this, I needed the second orange. And a pan with 250 ml of water and 200 grams of white caster sugar. Place the pan with the sugar water on a fire, not too high. Clean the orange thoroughly and cut into slices. Then let these slices cook gently for about 15 minutes. Make sure that this cooks really gently, if you cook it too hard or too long, your slices will break and that is not what you want for this topping.

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After about 15 minutes, remove the slices from the water, drain and let them cool.

And while that was cooling, I could continue making the buttercream.

To make the buttercream, mix the butter together with icing sugar, and yes… here comes the orange zest you saved earlier. Mix this with the butter and powdered sugar.

Mix it all again until creamy. Then add the cream cheese, and if you want you can add a little more orange juice. Your cream will then become a little thinner, but that doesn't have to be a drama. I have not chosen this, but have chosen to add a different, fresh taste in my cream. And that flavor consisted of lemon zest.

When all these preparations were done, my cake had not yet finished baking, and my partner had poured me a small glass of whiskey. So while I was waiting for my cake to be ready, I enjoyed the whiskey and we had a nice chat together. When the cake was ready, I took it out of the oven and put it away safely to cool, but didn't take a picture. Forgot... Oops!

The next morning it was Saturday. The day of the visit, and I still had to finish the cake. So on with the action!

Soon after I woke up I started cutting my cake in half, and when it was neatly done … I thought about photos again.

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Good, now you have made 2 nice round cakes from 1 nice round cake. You are now going to spread the buttercream on it. If you do this a little carefully, it doesn't have to be a mess, and the first half doesn't have to be very neat either. Because you hide this perfectly as soon as you place the second cake half on the cream. Be careful not to break it though. That would be a waste of all your hard work. You don't taste it, but still!

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When you have placed the second cake half on top of your buttercream-smeared first half, it starts to look like a real cake. But now we move on.

And we are going to smear buttercream again on this top half. Try to finish this a little neatly, because this is the appearance of your cake. And again, you won't taste it if it doesn't look so nice, but I'm a perfectionist enough myself that I also want a cake to look a bit nice.

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After you've put the buttercream on, and you're happy with it, it's time again to look at the orange slices you cooked earlier. These are now well cooled, and you put them on top of the buttercream.

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To finish it off, sprinkle slivered almonds all over, and it's done.

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Put the whole thing in the fridge for a few hours before you cut it, and then ... Enjoy a delicious Orange Cake.