Entire Orange Cake

food//and- it's a lifestyle

I might change the name of this newsletter to Food//and. What do you think? It occurred to me while I was having a conversation with someone about what it is that I do and food/and was the best I could come up with. My writing? Food and food-adjacent. Manuscript? More of the same. My business? I mean, I own a micro-bakery, Butter Moon Bake Co, and while it isn’t in production, I have started teaching live classes on Zoom… food/and.

I very much like it here- the ability to weave a common thread through all facets of my personal and professional life. It gets messy; making sure I am somewhat nice and neat with it all, something I am still learning how to do. In all the ways I feel like I lack knowledge re: SEO, website maintenance, “funnels” (don’t ask) etc if there is one thing I know how to do, it’s make a damn fine buttermilk biscuit.

I shared my personal origin story of how I came to make and build a bakery out of my butter milk biscuits a few posts ago and you can read about it here. TLDR Traumatic event, made biscuits for the first time, failed, made them on repeat (daily) for months on end, became a way for me to make money so that I could leave my ex-husband, and work while still staying home with the kids.

Phew.

Anywho, after a couple month stint of hosting live (Zoom) buttermilk biscuit classes for my Facebook group of food + storytelling called Feed Me A Story I am very happy to announce that I’m teaching a class available to everyone, details below-

When:
Saturday, February 10th at 1 pm MST

Where:
Your kitchen//virtually//Zoom !!

What’s Included:
A live demonstration ✔️
Prep along with me or watch//take notes, whatever feels best !!

Butter Moon Bake Co’s highly coveted buttermilk biscuit recipe 😱 ✔️

Live Q&A ✔️

Access to Facebook group for continued support + discussion ✔️

Cost:
$115
$75 for Substack Subscribers (that’s you!!)

Sign up here !! https://square.link/u/ObLjWcik

Make sure the email you use is the one you USE. This is where I will send you the recipe + equipment list before we meet so you’re ready to go day of !!

Butter Moon might not be in production atm but now you can make biscuits at home 🥹

The pricing for all of you is reduced so make sure you click on the Substack Subscriber option when you register! I’m going to cap the number of attendees so that the Q&A doesn’t get wild and I can help everyone out.

Know someone that would want to attend? Share with them! I created a week-of-dinners + my personal kitchen staples list for newcomers to the newsletter and while y’all already have access to the following recipes, I thought I would share with you, too *see highlighted link above.

Feeding a family requires a lot of things but two things that keep me from having my brain seep from my ears is-

-Meal plan for two weeks at a time. That way I get the most out of Costco trips while leaving wiggle room for produce I know won’t last that long

-Making sure I am having some ingredient cross-over to use up those big-ass Costco hauls, especially since we don’t have a pantry

-Feed everyone leftovers from dinner the night before as lunch (bless to those of you trying to feed folx that won’t eat leftovers because I could never)

-Leave 2 days a week as “free” to account for leftover nights, random nights out, and/or when you need to phone it in and call on your BFF (my bff) instant ramen

TLDR x 2 cannot wait to actually see some of your faces in this class and get the opportunity to hang with y’all. As always, I am forever grateful to be supported by all of you and figure out what comes next in regards to an ever-growing brand of food/and (seriously, should I change the name?)

Earlier this week I made a Sicilian orange cake quite literally out of the blue, it went something like this-

Me, curled around Little while he finishes up his nap and Anaya on the other side of him, sharing photos of contending dresses for Moonie to wear to The Wedding (our wedding in March).

Me: shows/tells

Anaya: show/tells

Me: shows/walks out of the room without a word

Me, but 25 minutes later, crawling back into bed with the two of them: hi

Anaya: where’d you go?

Me: oh, I made a cake

This is me/my ADHD in a nutshell. I wanted to make something, I wanted something sweet, I wanted something easy, and I wanted it to be not-too-sweet because that’s the way I like my bakes and even more so Anaya.

It has everything I personally love in a cake. It is more dense than fluffy, decadent in a way that doesn’t rely on richness or grandeur. Super simple. Very straight forward ingredients. Zero frosting, swoon. If you need some sunshine in your life, make this cake.

Note: you cannot get around not using the entire orange. I have a Ninja, nothing too fancy, and I simply cut the orange into quarters and it got the job done just fine.

Entire Orange Cake

275 grams all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

3 eggs

250 grams granulated sugar

1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, softened

113 grams sour cream

2 tsp vanilla

1 large orange, washed and quartered, including the peel

Glaze

Juice and zest from 1 large orange

100 grams cane sugar

Preheat oven to 350

Grease a spring form pan (I used a 9 inch), if you don’t have one you could do a bundt or a 9x9, just keep in mind, and keep an eye, so that you can make adjustments.

In a food processor or blender or ___ blend the hell out of that entire orange until it forms a paste, set aside.

*I used a hand mixer but you can use a mixer if you’ve got it.

Put flour, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl. Stir to combine, set aside.

In a large bowl add eggs, sugar and vanilla and mix until fluffy.

Add in the flour mixture gradually, mixing as you go as well as the sour cream, butter and orange paste. Mix well, the batter will be thick, be sure to scrape the bottom and sides well.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 45 ish minutes. I’m high above sea level and honestly, I could’ve pulled it at 40 minutes (I like my baked good slightly underdone, as we know) but depending on where you’re at it could take longer. Check the center with a toothpick, it should have just a few crumbs sticking to it.

Heat the orange zest, juice, and sugar is a small saucepan over medium heat, until it begins to simmer. Let it cook down until it becomes syrupy.

Once the cake has cooled for 15 minutes you can release the sides of your spring form. Allow the glaze to fully cool before pouring on top. Serve once cake is completely cool.

Biggest love,

AT

Currently Reading: … did I start another book despite saying I wouldn’t? Maybe

Currently Listening To: Moonie singing in the kitchen

Currently Cooking: Moonie has dance on Wednesdays and today I was smart and deemed it a leftover night. I made Italian wedding soup (for the first time?!) last night so that is what’s for dinner