Orange Cornmeal Cake

It's eerily quiet around here. It's finally Pesach vacation and that means the girls are off in Poland and in America. O and E went up north with the rest of the girls and I'm in the dorms manning the fort. Today, I went out to see an Italian-Jewish art exhibit with one of the remaining girls and then to the shuk with her. It was really a lot of fun and it was great to get out and get some fresh air. I think tomorrow I'll head out to the soup kitchen and volunteer there. Anyway, since Pesach is all about not having chametz around, I decided to try hard to get rid of whatever I could before I leave. I have a whole kilo of cornmeal and I thought it might be worth it to make a dent in it. So I did. I made this Orange Cornmeal Cake from Martha's Everday Food. The bad news is, I only used about half cup cornmeal. The good news is that this cake was unexpectedly delicious. Why do I say unexpectedly? Because the last time I made the orange-cornmeal combination, the result was good but too salty. I thought it had to do with the combination itself because I had checked the salt content and was a bit apprehensive going into this. But I had oranges and cornmeal and I soldiered on. The cake is easy to put together as it uses oil and no margarine. The eggs and sugar are beaten while oil is drizzled in, creating a sort of emulsion. Then everything else is added, the batter is panned, topped with sugar and baked. Voila! You have orange cake. The orange is so wonderful here, words can't describe. It is moist and tender, although I wish the cornmeal played a slightly bigger role here. But no mind. This cake was perfection. Even the girls who were here to taste it thought so. I guess there is hope yet for sophisticating their palates.

Orange Cornmeal Cake

adapted from Everyday Food

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

zest of about two oranges

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a nine inch springform pan. Set aside.

Place the dry ingredients on a piece of parchment paper.
Whisk and set aside.
Place the orange juice and zest in a container. Whisk and set aside.
Place the eggs, sugar and oil in a bowl and blend throughly.

Drizzle the orange juice mixture, whisking the entire time.

Add the dry ingredients and mix to form a uniform batter.
Pour it into the prepared pan,
and sprinkle sugar evenly across the top.
Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the rim and allow to cool completely.