Tunisian Orange Cake: A story in two shots

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Because Karen J Lloyd is an awesome person, she produced her “The Shot Tells the Story” series. Inspired by her series, I have produced the story of my favourite cake to bake (and eat): The Tunisian Orange Cake!

It’s from “Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery Course“, retailing at £30 (£19.50 with the Amazon link), available at a bookstore near you (in the UK, not sure about elsewhere – it’s from a cookery school in Ireland). And if you ever get a chance to taste this cake then you too will march to your nearest bookstore and buy one without hesitation. (Fortunately, the rest of the book is equally as awesome, so it’s worth forking out for.)

Getting around to the actual cake…

This is my second baking of this cake, the first having been pulled out of the oven too soon in an outrageous display of overly eager cake anticipation. The disappointment that followed guaranteed a second attempt. A bare in mind that the only other time that I have tried this cake it was burnt. Seriously, you burn this cake, it still tastes like ambrosia (not the rice pudding, the greek myth stuff, e.g. manna from heaven only not so christianity-centric).

Oh, and before I forget, the reason for this little aside is because I had a super amazing breakthrough last night which resulted in me feeling like I could get up and get some stuff done again today rather than having that mopey feeling that tells me I’ve some stuff to work through that’s come up (see, I’m starting to get better and interpreting these signals, or rather I’m remembering to write them down after the fact so that I will hopefully remember them next time around). Anyway, unstuckness. So yes, I had this amazing revelation after deciding to sit and do some ‘Morning Pages’ at 2.30am, even if I hadn’t done my “daily” Shiva Nata practice, because something was causing me to wander around the house like a zombie despite at least a fair chunk of my brain suggesting that bed was a very reasonable idea right now.

But I’m not ready to write about that one yet. The biggies take a while for me to process, or at least, require so much writing about off the blog that to write about it even more on the blog just starts to sound a bit tedious, and as much I love you guys, I can’t imagine that forcing myself to write out some random, uncomprehensible ramblings is really what you want. (What do you mean, “What’s the difference?”. I don’t understand )

Right, I figure that’s enough keeping you waiting.

The Close Up

Because this cake is important.

Tunisian Orange Cake: Close Up

The Extreme Close Up

Because you need to see just how yummy it truly is in all it’s crumbly, gooey, citrusy, slightly spiced, slightly crusted, marmalade spongey, golden huey, man I want another slice-y gorgeousness.