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Recipe Mon May 04 2009
Baking with Clementines
I decided to make my second foray into Nigella Lawson's clementine cake, as it seems to be popular and well, I've eaten a boatload of clementines each day as I've clutched tightly to their brief springtime appearance at the grocery store. I don't want to get sick of them before the crop fades away for the year. Clementines baked into a cake means that I can get my daily sugar fix and feel mildly healthy for having eaten a fruit-based, gluten-free dessert. Mildly.
The first step involves boiling 4 to 5 clems for two hours. the first time I did this, I ignored the project and watched television in another room. I later disovered that the smell of burnt clementines is awful. This time, I circled the stove like a hawk.
Allow me a brief product shout-out: my new best kitchen friend is the Cuisinart SmartStick Hand Blender, which is a godsend when it comes to pureeing soups and making smoothies, but an even better asset when I was griding almonds for this cake, as well as mashing the cooled, boiled fruit.
The product? A very flavorful, spongy cake that has an air of being served at a formal tea party or reception. The boiling brings out the tangier, sharper side of the fruit's flavor, which gets a mild tempering by the small (one cup) amount of white sugar that accompanies the clementines, as well as the grainy texture of the ground almonds. Highly recommended.
