Cookbook Challenge 2011 - Citrus

Food safari has always been one of my favorite foodie shows; I love the mix of home cooks and celebrity chefs featured, and of course Maeve O'Mara's natural style. I spent ages scribbling down notes while watching the shows, so I was stoked when a cookbook to accompany the first series was released.

The Turkish episode featured sweet little semolina orange cakes in syrup that looked just beautiful. There's some great valencia oranges available at the markets at the moment, which don't look as pretty as some of the other varieties, but are great for juice so I figured I'd buy some and give this recipe a go.

To be honest, I found that there was way more syrup than I felt was needed and you could easily halve the quantity given. 500g of sugar for 6 small cakes is begging for a diabetic coma if you ask me. Otherwise, I was really quite pleased with how they turned out.


ravani - semolina orange cakes from maeve o'mara's food safari
5 medium eggs, separated
1 tablespoon sugar, plus 1 pinch extra
grated zest of 1 orange
50g fine semolina
50g plain flour
100g ground pistachios

SYRUP
600ml fresh orange juice
grated zest of 1 orange
500g sugar

TO SERVE
300ml greek yoghurt
2 oranges

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter a muffin tray that has 6 large moulds.
In a large bowl beat the egg whites with a pinch of sugar until stiff. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with 1 tablespoon of sugar and the orange zest until pale. Add the semolina, flour and pistachios to the egg whites and partly mix through. Add the egg yolks and fold through until combined. Spoon into the muffin tray and bake for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the syrup. Put the orange juice, zest and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for 10 minutes or until syrupy and reduced by half. Leave to cool.

Whip the cream until thick and stir in the yoghurt.
Segment the oranges by cutting off the peel with a small sharp knife, making sure you remove all the white pith. Cut on either side of each segment, removing wedges of flesh but leaving the membranes.
When the cakes are cooked, ladle over some of the cooled syrup and leave to soak for at least 10 minutes (or longer if you prefer the cakes softer). Serve the cakes with the whipped cream and yoghurt, orange segments and a little extra syrup.