SNPiccolo5
Senior Cook
Hi everyone,
Last night I tried this recipe for whole-orange cake, except I used key limes and upped the sugar to 1 1/2 cups
1 whole orange (fresh)
6 oz. butter
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4-1/2 tsp salt.
Basically, you puree the citrus until it is a paste (mine was a little more liquid, though), and add all the other ingredients.
In the end, the cake was VERY--inedibly, in fact--bitter. It was strange, because it had the most wonderful, aromatic, pronounced key-lime flavor, but then finished with a horrible bitterness.
The bitterness, I know, comes from the pith, which I included in the recipe.
I think it must have something to do with limes, too. I have read about many people making this recipe and loving it, so I'm wondering--why didn't it work for me?
So, I decided to blanch the key limes today. blanched them whole, three times for 30 minutes. Pureed, added a little sugar so I could taste it. Extremely bitter. Threw it out. So that I could still make the recipe, I zested some key limes, peeled them, and pureed the fruit (sans peel) in the blender and used that, along with all the zest in the recipe. I even added a little bit of the bitter puree I had made -- I felt bad wasting it. Good key lime cake, but nowhere near the citrus intensity I was looking for. And, even though I only used a little, there is a slight bitter ending from the whole-lime puree I did use.
I'm thinking limes might just be more bitter than other citrus fruits? I'm thinking of making it with the orange soon. Has anyone else tried this?
Also, I'm thinking of using whole limes next time. I would peel them and blanch the peel, scraping out the softened pith so avoid the bitterness (I did this making candied grapefruit peel once), and puree the peeled fruit and de-pithed peel. But it's lots of work. I would just make it an orange cake (and add lime zest) if I knew I could use the whole orange.
Sorry for the rambly-ness of this. Lots of thoughts.
Tim
Last night I tried this recipe for whole-orange cake, except I used key limes and upped the sugar to 1 1/2 cups
1 whole orange (fresh)
6 oz. butter
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4-1/2 tsp salt.
Basically, you puree the citrus until it is a paste (mine was a little more liquid, though), and add all the other ingredients.
In the end, the cake was VERY--inedibly, in fact--bitter. It was strange, because it had the most wonderful, aromatic, pronounced key-lime flavor, but then finished with a horrible bitterness.
The bitterness, I know, comes from the pith, which I included in the recipe.
I think it must have something to do with limes, too. I have read about many people making this recipe and loving it, so I'm wondering--why didn't it work for me?
So, I decided to blanch the key limes today. blanched them whole, three times for 30 minutes. Pureed, added a little sugar so I could taste it. Extremely bitter. Threw it out. So that I could still make the recipe, I zested some key limes, peeled them, and pureed the fruit (sans peel) in the blender and used that, along with all the zest in the recipe. I even added a little bit of the bitter puree I had made -- I felt bad wasting it. Good key lime cake, but nowhere near the citrus intensity I was looking for. And, even though I only used a little, there is a slight bitter ending from the whole-lime puree I did use.
I'm thinking limes might just be more bitter than other citrus fruits? I'm thinking of making it with the orange soon. Has anyone else tried this?
Also, I'm thinking of using whole limes next time. I would peel them and blanch the peel, scraping out the softened pith so avoid the bitterness (I did this making candied grapefruit peel once), and puree the peeled fruit and de-pithed peel. But it's lots of work. I would just make it an orange cake (and add lime zest) if I knew I could use the whole orange.
Sorry for the rambly-ness of this. Lots of thoughts.
Tim