It was 80-something today for Jim & Carmen's annual Time Change Party. Fabulous party, as always, and everyone is now itching for Concerts in the Park to get started. Today's party featured Jim's bottomless pot of pork chile verde, tortillas, rice, beans, chips, guacamole, salads, cake, margaritas and wine.
My original plan was to bring Saveur's Glazed Grapefruit Cake to the party, because it is so gorgeous and sunny with the different colored grapefruits. I found some Oro Blanco and Ruby Red grapefruit at Coronado's Tuesday Farmers' Market, which is now steps from my front door, and decided to throw in a few blood oranges for an extra burst of color. I did a test run of the cake on Friday, but then woke up Sunday morning and felt like cooking something different for the party. It's not that I didn't love the cake, especially with my morning coffee, but I was intrigued by the Natchitoches Meat Pies in Donald Link's Real Cajun and felt they would go well with the party menu. Preparing those kept me busy for the morning and everyone said they were fabulous. I guess a blog post is in order for that recipe!
The Glazed Grapefruit Cake is basically a moist, tangy (buttermilk) pound cake, baked in a 9 x 13-inch dish, covered with a layer of sugared, broiled grapefruit slices and drizzled with a grapefruit juice glaze. After making and eyeing the amount of batter, I opted for a slightly smaller, 8 x 10-inch dish to give my cake more height. The cake itself doesn't have much grapefruit flavor, with a few tablespoons of zest. I might be tempted next time to use the method in Thomas Keller's Grapefruit Cake and make a grapefruit syrup for the cake.
Glazed Grapefruit Cake
Slightly adapted from Saveur
Serves 8
Ingredients:
Combination of different colored grapefruit and blood oranges (1 pink, 1 red, and 1 white grapefruit, and 2 blood oranges, peeled/supremed, and and sliced ¼″ thick crosswise, plus 2 tablespoons zest and 3 tablespoons juice
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 2/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
Preparation:
Heat oven broiler. Arrange grapefruit and blood orange slices in an even layer on an aluminum foil–lined baking sheet fitted with a wire rack; sprinkle with 3 tablespoons sugar. Broil, rotating pan as needed, until slightly caramelized, about 7 minutes; set aside.
Heat oven to 325°. Whisk flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl; set aside. In another bowl, and using an electric mixer, cream remaining sugar and the butter until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add zest, buttermilk, and vanilla; mix until combined. With the motor running, slowly add dry ingredients until smooth. Spread batter evenly into a 8” × 10” baking dish; bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Let cake cool, then arrange reserved grapefruit and orange slices, overlapping slightly, on top.
Whisk juice and confectioners' sugar in a bowl until smooth; drizzle evenly over cake. Let cake sit 30 minutes to set glaze before serving.
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| I liked the addition of blood oranges |
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| Sugared, broiled grapefruit and blood orange slices |
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| "Winter" moving in for the weekend |
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| Trapper was in Newf-Heaven as the storm moved in |
I do hope you will post the recipe you used for the meat pies. I first tried them at the Zydeco Festival in Matchitoches, LA a couple of years ago and found the ones made IN Natchitoches to be much different than most made in other parts of the South. The grapefruit recipe sounds delicious. On Winter, I guess we in the South got your Winter, and that for some other people too. Thanks for the great blog.
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