Live Every Week Like It's Cake Week

Today is that Hallmark holiday known as Valentine’s Day, and if I were keeping with the theme, I would post something sinfully chocolatey – brownies, or Devil’s Food cake, or the Chocolate Bourbon cake – or maybe red velvet cupcakes, which I haven’t actually ever made and should try one of these days. But no. You’re getting an orange cake, because I love oranges, and I’m spending Valentine’s Day with my cat and the season premiere of The Amazing Race, so I’m not baking chocolate if I don’t want to, dammit.

This is not to say that I have anything against chocolate – it’s actually mostly to say that I don’t have enough Ghirardelli to pull off devil’s food today.

This is one of my more frequently repeated desserts, honestly; sometimes I make the whole thing in a 9×13, sometimes I make cupcakes, theoretically I could do the layer cake thing at some point, but today I’ll be halving the recipe and doing one 9″, single layer cake. The recipe posted is the whole thing, though.

The cake is from Allen at Eating Out Loud, and the frosting is from…the 1976 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook, and is the only buttercream recipe I will ever, ever use. Ever. Don’t fix what ain’t broke, people, and this buttercream is perfect.

Orange Sour Cream Cake

Via Eating Out Loud

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. orange extract
8 oz. butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup fresh orange juice

Preheat oven to 350F and grease and flour pan(s) (or line muffin tins with papers if going the cupcake route).

Cream together butter and sugar, and then stir in sour cream, vanilla, orange extract, and eggs until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda and salt, and then slowly add to wet ingredients, mixing until smooth. Pour in orange juice and again mix until smooth.

Pour into prepared pan(s) and bake. If you’re doing this in a 9×13, bake for an hour. Make it 30-35 minutes for 8″-9″ pans, and 20-25 minutes for cupcakes. Set aside and let cool.

Orange Butter Frosting

Via Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1976 edition

1/3 C butter, softened
3 C confectioner’s sugar
1 1/2 t orange extract
2 T orange juice

Blend butter and sugar. Stir in extract and orange juice, beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

Procrastination is an art form, dear almost nonexistent readers. Procrastination is why I’ve put off baking this coffeecake for almost two weeks now, and procrastination is why it’s being baked right now, at 10 pm. Because the other option is working on the writing project I’ve been putting off for a month, and heavens, we wouldn’t want to that, would we?

Of course not.

This recipe is basically Kitchen Brother’s Cranberry Buckle, with one important, essential, imperative addition: orange extract. Unnecessary, you say, when there’s already zest? Please, there can never be enough orange, especially in combination with cranberry.

That’s your lesson for today.

Cranberry Buckle

Streusel
1/2 C unbleached AP flour
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
2 T granulated sugar
1/2 t ground cinnamon
Pinch table salt
4  T unsalted butter (1/2 stick), cut into 8 pieces, softened but still cool
Cake
1 1/2 C AP flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
10 T unsalted butter, softened but still cool
2/3 C granulated sugar
1/2 t table salt
1/2 t grated orange zest
1 t orange extract
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
2  large eggs , room temperature
4  C fresh cranberries

Mix dry streusel ingredients, add softened butter, chopped, and rub between your fingers until the consistency of wet sand. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9″ cake pan.

Whisk together flour and baking powder, set aside.

Cream butter, sugar, salt, and orange zest. Add eggs and vanilla and orange extracts. Mix until smooth, and then add dry ingredients, mixing until the flour is thoroughly combined.

Fold in cranberries. I highly recommend you do this with a wooden spoon rather than a spatula, lest your spatula snap in two. As mine did approximately half an hour ago.

Transfer dough to pan, pressing it into corners until it is even. Gather streusel in your hand and form a large clump before sprinkling it over the cake.  Repeat until the cake is coated and the streusel is gone. Bake for 55 minutes.

I can’t vouch for its taste, but it smells fabulous.