Ingredients
Directions
There are numerous variations on the traditional pound cake, with certain countries and regions having distinctive styles. Pound cake is quite well known in France and is called 'quarte-quarts', or 'four quarters' which consist of one to one ratio of each ingredient: butter, sugar, eggs and flour.
Navel cara cara orange works beautifully for this recipe. It builds on traditional orange flavor with floral and berry-like notes that add fruity dimension to this one of a kind pound cake. Best eaten after 2 days of refrigeration!..
(This lemon pound cake available on my Premium Recipes).
To blanch oranges, place them in a large pot and cover with tap water (cold). Bring to a boil, remove oranges and rinse. Fill an appropriate container or same pot you used for blanching the oranges with water, and set up your circulator to 186.8ºF/86ºC. Cut off orange ends, quater and cut off unnecessary remaining white parts. Bag oranges first in the bag, add sugar and vacuum-seal immediately otherwise the juice escape from the bag during vacuum-sealing. It wont happen if you do it with a professional vacuum-sealer. Cook oranges for 6 hours. Flip bag after a couple of hours to redistribute the sugar which has turned into syrup. After cooking, let bag out to cool off and refrigerate overnight or for up to 6 months. Poached oranges can be used as a base to make orange butter for game and duck dishes...
Follow the same procedure as explained above for blanching and cutting. Then place the oranges in a saucepan and add 400g sugar and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook on very low simmer for about 2 hours; uncovered. Turn the heat off and leave oranges in the saucepan to cool off. Store oranges in a sealed container for a week or so. Drain and squeeze excess juice prior to use.
Grease molds with cooking spray or soften butter and flour. Sift together flour and baking powder and set aside. In a high powdered blender, mix together the chilled and squeezed poached orange quarters along with the oil and cold crème fraiche for about 20 seconds or until smooth (do not over blend or it will heat up and separate). In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the orange compound with the eggs, sugar, salt and powders. Fill up prepared mold(s). At this juncture, the filled molds can kept refrigerated for up to 48 hours prior to bake.
Since glazed or candied or confit orange peels last for months, make a large batch and keep refrigerated for later use such as panettone. Scrape two-third of the orange flesh out left on the poached orange quarters (save excess orange flesh for your next breakfast, carrot puree, salad...) Cut orange peel into batons and then cubes. In a saucepan, add the cubed orange along with cooking juice and sugar. Add vanilla if desired and cook for 45 minutes on low heat.
Preheat oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Bake cake for 40 minutes for mini loaf pans and between 60 to 80 minutes if baked in one large mold. The internal cake temp should reach 209ºF/98ºC when done. Remove from the oven, let rest for 10 mins prior to de-mold. Place cake onto a cooling rack to rest. Then dust cake sides with powdered sugar and top with the glazed orange.
Wrap pound cake in plastic film and refrigerate for more than a week. Best way to freeze any pound cake, freeze cake for 4 hours until completely harden and vacuum-seal. Now, your vacuumed-seal pound cakes can last 3 weeks in the refrigerator or months in the freezer.
Great news, this orange pound cake batter is suitable for madeleine!.. The humps won't go as high as it should but it is good enough to be enjoyed as such!. Yields ≈ 3 dozen madeleines.
Bake at 500ºF/260ºC for 5 minutes and lower temp to 350ºF/180ºC and bake for 7 mins more. If using fan oven, lower temp to 450ºF/230ºC, then 325ºF/160ºC.
