Upside down orange cake, a caramelized delight!

A box of oranges, the good ones. The last of the season.
Put a night in the kitchen, which is better than one at the museum.
A long night. And how long we will measure the next day based on the intensity of the dark circles.
Pen and paper, ingredients, doses, flour in my hair and hope. Write and delete, taste and retract.
Spotify – but mute it, because Roommate Of My Heart sleeps and – poor him – cookware is messing up.

Then, follow the recipe I’ll tell you. Keep a pinch of the mystery on the mutual adaptation of everything I have listed above, so cloak it all with love and poetry.

This is how this upside down orange cake is born.

And ask how I could have guessed the doses of the perfect dough – soft, tasty and moist to the right point – at first time it is a bit like wondering if when we close the fridge the light inside is really turn off.
Unresolved issues that lull us between our if and our but.

Better to solve them with a slice of this cake. Dunk in a good soundtrack, when we got everything we need.

Because the only flaw of this cake is that sooner or later it ends.

Upside down orange cake – the recipe

INGREDIENTS

For the syrup:

• 20 g of butter
• 50 g of cane sugar
• 15 g of honey
• The juice of half an orange
• The juice of half a lemon
• Orange slices (find the specifics at the end of the recipe)

For the dough:

• 250 g of plain flour
• 50 g of cornstarch
• 250 g of ricotta cheese
• 170 g of cane sugar
• 4 eggs
• The juice of 2 oranges
• Zest of a lemon and a large orange
• 50 g of melted butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 16 g of baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of cinnamon

METHOD

Prepare the syrup

1. Melt the butter, sugar, honey and lemon and orange juice together in a non-stick saucepan. Stir and reduce at low heat. As soon as the syrup begins to thicken (it is not a caramel therefore it must not brown) is ready.
2. Arrange the slices of orange in the bottom of a cake pan lined with parchment paper (don’t forget to grease the edges first).
3. Now pour the syrup over the orange slices. Put aside.

Prepare the dough

1. Whisk the eggs with the sugar and a pinch of salt to form a light and frothy cream.
2. Add to the melted butter: the orange juice, the vanilla extract, the orange and lemon zest. Pour it into the whipped eggs.
3. In a bowl, sift the powders together: flour, cornstarch and baking powder.
   Add half of the dry ingredients to the dough.
4. Once the first part of flour is incorporated, add the ricotta. Once mixed, pour in the remaining flour.
   Continue to work the mixture so as to obtain a uniform, creamy and dense consistency.
5. Pour the mixture over the oranges in syrup and bake in a preheated oven at 180° C for about 45 minutes (check the cooking with the toothpick).
6. Once cooked, turn off the oven and leave it half-open for ten minutes, necessary to gradually lower the temperature of the upside down orange cake; wait a few minutes – just to not burn yourself.
7. Then, with the help of a dish, turn the pan upside down. Gently remove the parchment paper and let it cool.

All you have to do is enjoy the scent that has come from your upside down orange cake that doesn’t even an orange Yankee Candle smell so good. Pray it and devour it.

The decalogue of the perfect orange (in the inverted cake with caramelized oranges)

• Oranges must be in season.
• Better if you find “dimensions” and “different” colors, sight and taste will be grateful.
• They must be a b s o l u t e l y  ORGANIC.
  And not so by habit. In this regard, I tell you that pesticides, polishing lacquers and various poisons are not included among the ingredients. In case you only find “supermarket” oranges available, peel them and use only the inside, don’t dare to put the peel in the cake.

How to use them

Cut an orange with all its peel, in very thin slices, a few millimeters, with a very sharp knife. Then arrange the slices on the bottom of the cake pan in a single layer, without overlapping them. These are the basic secrets for making them caramelize to perfection.

Orange considerations

Using the complete orange with its peel, we insert all its essential oils into the cake but also the white part, a healthy carrier of bitter taste. The bitter, for some, turns out to be exquisite in contrast with the sweetness of the syrup and the cake.

But not for me. I can’t hide the fact that the idea of ​​leaving the peel on the orange slices initially upset me. But it is scenographic. But the sage says

Never take away from “the good” to give beauty.

However, someone likes a peel.
For all of you who does not like the peel, you will solve the problem by removing it from the slices before eating the upside down orange cake. Easy. And problem solved friends.