SRC: Lavender and Lovage’s Fresh Orange Cake with Citrus Buttercream

For April’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Karen of Lavender and Lovage. Karen is an English cook who loves to share British recipes and French inspired recipes that look AMAZING! Looking through her blog, I was so impressed with all the gorgeous things she’d make for tea time - a quintessential English practise. I definitely need to get more tea time in my life!

She has TONS of amazing looking recipes including these Little Victoria Lemon Daisy Cakes, this Victorian Spring Posy Cake, this sticky Ginger Marmalade Loaf and this beautiful looking fruit salad. She also has a ton of recipes using her mom’s lemon curd and she even has a recipe for strawberry curd! Yum!

I have to admit that I was really only looking at her sweet recipes as I was looking for something to make as a birthday cake for myself and Karen didn’t disappoint. After much debating, I ended up choosing her Fresh Orange Cake with Citrus Buttercream. It’s a variation of her Victoria Sandwich Cake – a sponge cake that can be made into any size that you want as all the ingredients used (butter/margarine, sugar, flour) are the same weight as the eggs used . The original recipe calls for 4 eggs, but I used 3 and it was pretty easy to adapt. I couldn’t quite convince myself to use the full measurements of margarine and sugar, so I reduced them a bit. I debated trying to make this egg free, but I wouldn’t have know how to adapt it given how the recipe is made.

The buttercream originally had lemon curd in it, but it isn’t quite as readily available in Canada as it is in England, so I substituted a mixture of orange zest, lemon juice and limoncello. I added strawberries in the filling and garnished with one on top.

I can’t wait to try this cake – it looks so tasty! I will be sharing it with my coworkers tomorrow morning as my birthday gift to them, so I’ll get the final verdict then!

Lavender and Lovage’s Fresh Orange Cake

3 free range eggs (215 g)
200 g of margarine
150 g of castor sugar (I used normal white sugar that I made finer in my magic bullet)
215 g of flour (I used a mixture of brown rice, sorghum (~2/3 of the weight) and tapioca and potato starch (~1/3 of the weight)
1 tsp. xathan gum
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
Zest of two oranges
Juice of one orange (probably could have used two)
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

1. Preheat your oven to 350F and grease and line two 6″ cake pans.
2. Cream margarine and sugar together until fluffy.
3. Add orange zest. Add eggs one at a time until fully combined.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, gum, leavening and salt. Shift flour into the fat and fold in.
5. Mix in orange juice and vinegar.
6. Divide evenly between both pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
7. Let cake sit in the pan for a couple minutes before removing to cool on a cooling rack.
8. Once cool, frost with buttercream icing.

Citrus Buttercream Icing

4oz margarine
8 oz icing sugar
Zest of half an orange
Orange Juice
Lemon Juice
Limoncello

1. Cream margarine and icing sugar.
2. Add orange zest and a mixture of orange juice, lemon juice and limoncello (one tbsp at a time) beating until you reach the desired consistency.
3. Frost cake once it’s cool.

Karen, it was truly a pleasure to look through your blog with all your delicious recipes and gorgeous photos! I felt that I really learned about British Cuisine and look forward to trying more of your recipes!

Please check out the rest of Group D’s recipes below!

SRC: Chocolate and Chilies’ Apple Coffee Cake

For March’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Asiya of Chocolate and Chilies – a fellow Canadian! Asiya started her blog as a way to record of all the recipes that she’s tried and I’d say she’s done a great job at picking delicious recipes and taking great photos of them! She has tons and tons of beautiful, tasty looking recipes like this Spring Greens Risotto, this mango smoothie, these kiwi, lime and coconut muffins and this eggless, machine-less mango ice cream. She even has a coconut oil pie crust recipe and a whole page about substitutions!

After a lot of perusing her beautiful blog, I ended up choosing her Apple Coffee Cake and I wasn’t disappointed with my vegan, gluten free version! In the original recipe, you create a layer of apples, sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon between two layers of cake, but since vegan gluten-free cake batters are usually thicker than their non-vegan glutenated counterparts that just wasn’t going to happen. As a substitute, a tossed the sliced apples in cinnamon and then mixed them into the batter. Since I took this approach, I probably could have added a third apple.

The cake turned out really well! It rose beautifully, and the texture was fluffy and had a good crumb. It was also tasty – I’d definitely make it again, although I’ll add less sugar next time, especially in the topping.

Gluten Free Vegan Apple Coffee Cake

Cake:

2/3 c. each of brown rice and sorghum flours
2/3 c. tapioca starch
1 tsp. xanthan gum
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. dairy free margarine
1/2 c. white sugar
2 egg replacers (1 tbsp powder + 1/4 c. almond milk)
1/2 c. almond milk
1 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
2 apples, peeled and sliced and tossed in cinnamon (Could use 3)

Topping:
2-3 tbsp. brown rice flour
1 tbsp. dairy free margarine
1/4 c. white sugar (could also use brown/sucanat sugar)
1 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9″ cake pan with parchment paper and grease both the parchment paper and pan.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the topping using your hands. Set aside.
3. Whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.
4. Beat margarine and sugar together until fluffy (takes a few minutes.)
5. Add egg replacer and beat until combined.
6. Alternate adding flour and milk to the fat mixture, starting and ending with flour. Add the apple cider vinegar.
7. Mix in the apples. Scrape into the pan and used a spatula to smooth out.
8. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the cake.
9. Bake for about 40 – 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in multiple places comes out dry.
10. Cool on a rack. Can serve warm or room temperature.
11. Enjoy!

Asiya, it was great looking through your blog and I look forward to trying more of your recipes!

Please check out all the other recipes for Secret Recipe Club’s Group D below:

SRC: Oh! You Cook’s Jerusalem Carrot Salad

For February’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Dena of Oh! You Cook!. Dena is a Librarian by day and makes delicious looking Kosher food by night, including this delicious fruit salad, all these AMAZING looking Purim treats and these Moroccan carrots.

It was quite a treat for me to look through all her recipes and get a better understanding of what things one eats on various Jewish holidays. Purim sounds especially amazing with all those sweets.

After much humming and hawing, I finally chose her Jerusalem Carrot Salad, which is an approximation of a salad she had while in Jerusalem.

I pretty much followed the recipe exactly (shock, I know!) except that my spices almost burnt and then turned into these huge really dark brown spice clumps. My guess it’s because I added the honey while it was too hot, causing it to act kind of like sugar when you make candy. I salvaged what I could and added a bit more olive oil and honey whisked with the spices.

The result was decent, but I think I would have liked it better without the cumin as for some reason, I really don’t like cumin (and it doesn’t appear to like me either). On the same token, I didn’t want to leave it out as I wasn’t sure how that would affect the flavor profile of the salad. This salad is fairly delicate with the finely grated carrot, but if you’re short on time coarsely grating the carrot would make it easier to toss.

Dena, it was really fun to spend so much time looking through all of your recipes – you definitely prove that kosher food can look and taste delicious!

Please check out the rest of Group D’s recipes below!

SRC: My Judy The Foodie’s Bean Salad

For January’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Shari of My Judy the Foodie. Shari started getting into the kitchen after her mom (Judy, her blog’s namesake) passed away and as a way of preserving her memories, decided to cook through her handwritten recipes.

After ready through Shari’s story, I really want to take my mom’s cookbook of recipes she copied from her mom when she got married and cook through the whole lot. It might be challenging given my food restrictions, but it would totally be worth it and a good way to remember my Grannie. Perhaps a 2013 challenge?

Shari has tons of delicious recipes – while I was sick, I literally clicked through over 50 pages of her blog because everything looked so good and I couldn’t decide on anything! There are things like her mom’s legendary banana bread, this homemade nutella, these slow-cooked beef tips and this blueberry cucumber feta salad. I eventually ended up choosing her Bean Salad.

It’s not your traditional bean salad as it only has green beans and chickpeas instead of a whole assortment of other beans. I didn’t mind as it was definitely very tasty! I used less marinade/sauce as I am really not a sauce person and added a bit of honey to take away the zing of raw onions/leeks.

Salad
1/2 to 3/4 package frozen beans
1/4 red onions, thinly sliced
3 green onions, sliced
1/3 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 c. thinly sliced leeks
1 rib celery, sliced
1 small can of chickpeas
1/2 c. parsley, chopped

Dressing
1/4 c. white vinegar
1/4 c. olive oil
Juice of one lemon
1/4 – 1/2 tsp. dry mustard (could use 1 tbsp. dijon mustard)
1 tsp. honey
1/4 tsp. black pepper
Pinch of salt

Lettuce Leaves

1. Place beans in a pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Once the pot boils, drain and rinse with cool water.
2. Place beans in a large bowl with the remainder of the ingredients. Toss.
3. Whisk together dressing (below) and pour over salad. Toss salad to even coat.
4. Let sit for a few hours, stirring occasionally.
5. Serve over leaves of lettuce or plain if you desire.
6. Enjoy!

Please make sure to check out the rest of Group D’s recipes below for January’s Secret Recipe Club!

SRC: Beautiful Disaster’s Chocolate Chip Muffins

For November’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired with Casey of Beautiful Disasters. She has lots of delicious recipes, mainly desserts (and nothing I would remotely consider to be disasters),  including this caramel corn, puppy chow (if I hadn’t already eaten all my gluten free chex, I totally would have made this!) and this apple pull-apart bread (if only I could figure out a way to make this gluten free and work out the same way – perhaps I sense a challenge?)

I ended up choosing the chocolate chip muffins and making them gluten free. Can you believe that I had never made chocolate chip muffins before? After making these, I think that I was really missing something as these were delicious! Mr. Bean asked me to make them again!

Here’s how I adjusted the ingredients to make them gluten free (and possibly dairy free):

3/4 c. brown rice flour
1/2 c. sorghum flour
1/2 c. tapioca starch
1/4 c. potato starch
1 tsp. xathan gum
1/4 c. white sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 1/2 tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. dairy free margarine
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 c. almond milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Few squirts of lemon juice
1 1/4 c. chocolate chips (can be dairy free)

Have you ever made chocolate chip muffins?

Please check out the rest of Group D’s recipes below!