Blood Orange Rosemary Upside Down Cake

Hello from Sydney! It's definitely Summer here. I basically melted when I arrived on Saturday and have been freezing to death in the office during the workdays. Just like my summers on the East Coast!

I spent Sunday determinedly trying to have a beach day despite partial clouds and high winds that dusted me with a fine mist of sand every few seconds. I'm not as hard core as the Aussies, so I decamped for grassier ground after an hour, though I have two burned shoulders for my efforts, so I guess it was successful? I always seem to have terrible luck choosing beach days here, but one day, I will have a good beach outing in Sydney. 

Meanwhile, I'm happy thinking about more successful tries, like this upside down cake.

Cake is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food, right? As long as we are adding some fruit? It has Vitamin C!

Yes, I think so.

After all, a warm, soft, crumbly cake studded with citrus and herbs and soaked in a buttery caramel just goes so well with my morning tea. It would be a travesty to confine this thing to only dessert. The trick, really, is not eating the entire cake in one sitting (I managed to stretch it to three servings).

I have never made a pineapple upside cake or really ever been interested in eating one, but that is what this cake is based on. Instead of pineapple I swapped in fragrant seasonal blood orange and some rosemary, for the perfect January treat. And thankfully it turned out so much better than my last adventure with blood oranges.

I like to think of it as a casual cake, something you can whip up in seemingly no time, for brunch with friends, a cozy weekend morning on the sofa, yes, a quick dessert. The oranges and caramel cook up into a ready-made topping, so no extra effort on frosting needed. You can "artfully" scatter some rosemary around if you are feeling fancy, or leave it off. It's a little retro, a little grown up, but definitely delicious. 

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Blood Orange Rosemary Upside Down Cake

Adapted from Anne Byrn, serves 4.

For the Blood Orange Topping:

• 2 1/2 tbs unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 blood orange, sectioned

For the Rosemary Cake:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 tbs olive oil
• 3/8 cup sugar, divided
• 1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
• 1 egg, separated
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tbs lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 tbs blood orange juice (squeezed from remains of sectioned orange or from another orange if needed)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put butter in a 6 inch cast iron skillet and melt over medium-low heat, making sure to run the butter around the sides of the skillet as it melts (you want this cake to come out of the pan!). Remove from heat and stir in the brown sugar, then spread the butter and sugar mixture in an even layer over the skillet surface. Arrange blood orange sections across in whatever pattern you like.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the olive oil, sugar, egg yolk, rosemary, lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla and mix to combine. In a small bowl, mix together the sour cream and blood orange juice until smooth. Add flour mixture and sour cream mixture to the batter, alternating, until completely combined and a thick batter forms.
3. In a separate, large mixing bowl, beat egg white to soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar and beat to stiff peaks, the carefully fold egg white mixture into the batter until no streaks of whites remain, being careful not to deflate the egg white too much.
4. Pour the batter evenly over the arranged orange slices, transfer skillet to the oven to the middle rack and bake, 25-27 minutes, until firm to the touch and golden, and cake has risen quite a bit out of the skillet. You may want to place a baking sheet under the skillet to catch any drips.
5. When cake is done, let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge, then carefully flip onto a plate or platter and serve warm.

Deviled Egg BLT

If you are reading this before 5pm EST today then I’m probably still up in the air somewhere over the Pacific, desperately trying to get some sleep. Or maybe not so desperately. Last time I flew to Sydney it took me three tries to watch the Lego Batman Movie without nodding off, even though I’m not really sure that movie deserved so much effort on my part. 

But regardless of how the flying goes, I'm excited for a couple weeks of summer weather and pigging out at Sydney cafes. This sandwich here is not something I've encountered at any of the city's restaurants, but it feels like something that I could encounter, with just the right mix of comfort and quirk that I feel like I usually see on Australian cafe menus. All that's missing is an elaborate presentation on some kind of wooden serving board. I'll have to remember that for next time.

At it's essence, this is your standard BLT: bacon, lettuce, tomato, on sourdough  spread with butter and mayo and then grilled. 

But then.

You go to the trouble of making some deviled eggs, then you promptly mash them in between the B and the L or between the L and the T (you decide). The end result is kind of like the love child between a BLT and an egg salad sandwich, and is extremely pleasant to eat, with contrasting textures of crisp lettuce, crunchy bacon, soft tomato and creamy egg.

I don't think I really need to say anything more.

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Deviled Egg BLT

• 4 slices bacon
• 2 eggs, boiled
• mustard (I use dijon and a mix of whole grain mustard)
• mayonnaise
• salt & pepper
• romaine lettuce
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 4 thick slices good bread (I used sourdough)
• butter

1. Cook bacon slices as desired. I recommend broiling on a wire rack set in a baking sheet until crispy, flipping about halfway through.
2. Devil eggs: Slice eggs in half lengthwise, remove yolks and add to a bowl with mustard and mayonnaise, mashing with enough of both to create desired consistency and flavor. Season with salt and pepper to taste (at this point you could add a little of the bacon grease and some jarred pickle juice if you want to get crazy). Spoon yolk mixture back into the whites.
3. Toast the bread: Heat a cast iron or other heavy skillet over medium heat. Spread slices with a good amount of butter and a bit of mayonnaise and place buttered side down in the skillet. Toast until golden, then remove from pan. Repeat with any remaining slices.
4. Assemble sandwiches and serve immediately.

Pink Grapefruit IPA Sorbet

Science might tell you that if I want to somehow churn a beverage that is 7.5% alcohol into a sorbet, I may find this tricky to do. To science, I say, "Why don’t I just add some fruit juice and sugar to that and see what happens?" And voila, now I’ve got the most delicious, blush-pink sorbet with a bitter flavor endnote that signals this is a frozen treat for adults. 

Ok, perhaps the alcohol says adult-only too.

But for real, this is my favorite dessert I’ve made in quite a while, at once refreshing but also lightly boozy, bitter yet sweet, and all around enjoyable with a spoon and a lazy evening.

Or afternoon? Day sorbet-ing is the new day drinking. YOLO or whatever.

And I know, I know, it’s cold outside, but trust me, you may want to forget about that inconvenient fact just long enough to enjoy this sorbet. I’m landing on Saturday where it’s going to be just over 30 degrees, but that’s in Celsius, which is a little over 90 degrees, so personally I feel like my January timing is juuuuust right.

But even if you are landing Saturday on your sofa in refuge from bitter cold, I still recommend a frosty half-pint glass of this treat. I don't think you'll feel any regrets.

(And FYI this sorbet won't get you drunk. There is barely one beer in the entire batch.)

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Pink Grapefruit IPA Sorbet

• 3/4 cup pink grapefruit juice (from about 2 grapefruits)
• 1 1/4 cup Grapefruit IPA 
• 3/4 cup sugar

1. Combine grapefruit juice and beer with the sugar and whisk to combine and dissolve the sugar. Chill mixture thoroughly, at least a couple hours in the refrigerator.
2. Churn mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions. Mixture may be a little "loose" due to the alcohol content. Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze, covered, until firmed up (at least overnight is best).

Notes:

• I find the easiest way to get all the juice from grapefruits is to peel the grapefruits and then pulse in a blender, then strain through a sieve.
• Due to the alcohol level of most IPAs, the sorbet will probably not freeze as hard as you may be used to. But it will freeze, and is easy to scoop right out of the freezer.