Some people have amazing hidden talents; They can flip their eyelids inside out, contort their back in half, or I've even seen someone hold their hands while they swing their arms from behind their back up over their head to the front of their body without letting go. I can't even cross my eyes. If I were put on the spot, however, I guess would have to fall back on the following "hidden talents": parallel parking and peeling an orange. 

I didn't acquire these "talents" on my own. My mother drives a GMC dually truck that more often than not is hauling a six horse trailer behind it. She's an amazing driver and she taught me to parallel park. My dad, Randy, is the Marlboro man; Aside from smoking reds, he wears a black cowboy hat, wranglers, and boots 365 days a year. There is nothing about my dad that would indicate he possesses a skill for peeling fruit, yet, he's the person that taught me how to peel an orange in one piece. 

Think of an orange like a globe. Rather than attempt to peel it from one pole to the other, longitudinally, maybe next time you enjoy this tasty fruit, circle around one of the poles and then peel latitudinally until you reach the other. 

Is Latitude : Longitude :: Green Jacket : Gold Jacket for you? Its hard to keep the two straight sometimes, I have to stop and think about it too. That is what visuals are for :) 

And we begin:

A. 

Clockwise starting from top left: 1.Begin at the top of the orange. 2. With fingernail, pierce the rind and create a circle. 3. Be careful, however, not to join the ends of the circle. Instead, leave about an inch between the beginning and the end (that way, the circle stays attached to the rest of the peel). 4. Pull back the peel. 

B.  

Clockwise starting from top left: 1.Finish pulling back the peel into the rest of the orange. 2. Using your thumb to pull the peel back, follow the orange around in a spiral. 3. Keep going... 4. Stop when you get to the other end of the orange. 

C.   

Clockwise starting from top left: 1., 2., and 3. Remove the end. 4. And done!

I eat a lot of oranges, was that obvious? 

I know that oranges aren't in season, but I still crave them and am always looking for interesting dishes and desserts that showcase them. This week, I experimented with oranges in cakes.

Orange Almond Cake(s) 

The first cake I tested was Martha Stewart's Orange Almond layer cake. It's a yellow cake (meaning that it contains egg yokes) and uses the zest and juice of two oranges. The recipe also calls for ground almonds as well as almond extract. What was unique about the process (for me) was that the method used egg whites whipped until soft peaks formed. The whites were then folded into the batter in order to give the cake volume. 

I liked Martha's cake. It was good, what can I say. The only issue I had with it was that the texture was off; the ground almonds contributed to what I thought was a tougher, denser crumb (or cake). Not satisfied with my results, I kept searching for more recipes.

I recalled a white layer cake from America's Test Kitchen's (ATK), Family Baking Book, that Chris and I think is amazing. The cake recipe calls for 1 teaspoon each vanilla and almond extract. Why couldn't I substitute orange extract for the vanilla?!? 

Orange Almond White Layer Cake
adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book (my modifications and/or additions in italics) 

1 cup whole milk, room temperature 
6 large egg whites, room temperature
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/4 cups (9 ounces) cake flour
1 3/4 cups (12 1/4 ounces) sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and adjust an oven rack to the middle position. Grease and flour two 8 or 9 inch cake pans and line with parchment paper (I used 4-inch cake pans for these mini cakes). Whisk milk, egg whites, and both extracts together in small bowl.

2. In large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together. With whisk attachment and electric mixture set to medium-low, beat the butter into the flour mixture, one piece at a time. Continue to beat until the mixture resembles moist crumbs. Replace the whisk attachment with the paddle attachment. 

3. Beat in all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture, increase mixer speed to medium and beat until smooth, light, and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium-low and mix in remaining 1/2 cup milk mixture. 

4. Scrape bowl with rubber spatula to ensure that the batter is thoroughly combined. Pour batter into prepared cake pans; smooth the top of the batter with spatula. Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center and removed has only a few crumbs attached. Rotate the pans half way through baking.

5. Let cake cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and peel away the parchment. Let cool completely before frosting.  

Even if Martha's cake wasn't to my liking, her Swiss Meringue Buttercream (used to frost all the cakes pictured here) was incredibly smooth, easy to frost with, and just damn tasty! If you head back to Martha's Orange Almond Cake recipe page and press the play button located on the cake picture, you can watch a video on how to frost a layer cake (yeah!). To frost my cakes, I use a plastic, Oxo lazy susan ($10.95) instead of a fancy cake stand turntable ($65+).  

The Results
Above left: Matha's cake on the left and ATK's on the right. I weighed the batter in each cake pan to ensure that they were all equal from the beginning. Center: ATK's cake on the left and Martha's on the right. Right: ATK's cake has much more volume, doesn't it? I am sure there are a plethora of factor's that would need to be considered to test the validity of this little experiment, but my taste buds went for ATK's hands down.