Blood Orange Buttermilk Pound Cake

It’s always around this time of year that we begin swimming in citrus and every meal (and drink!) has some splash of fragrant juice. You can call it a garden obsession, but we’re not far from being finished. Last week we planted another (our third) blood orange tree and it wasn’t in-celebration to grow more, but rather, to replace one blood orange tree that had completely died on us.

So this blog post has mixed emotions, both sadness for losing a beloved tree and joy of giving another tree life in our garden. We’re ready to move on and celebrate blood oranges.

Call it over-zealous gardening or perhaps too much attention to care which resulted in overwatering. After ten years, our beloved first blood orange tree completely died. We were in shock and speechless when it started to deteriorate after only 4 weeks of peaking out with hundreds of blood oranges. With still about one hundred pounds of blood oranges to pick, the tree quickly started to yellow and lose it’s leaves.

After many phone calls to nurseries, conversations with Master gardeners and hours researching online, the conclusion was that our tree was being over watered.

We killed our own tree? Did we really hurt it? After a phase of feeling guilt for nurturing the tree too much, we realized we shouldn’t be punishing ourselves for loving something too much. In fact, we saw it as a learning experience on how to care for older established trees and not baby-ing it like a toddler-tree.

As we said good-bye to our first blood orange tree for all the years of beautiful juice, zest, cocktails and love, we celebrated its contribution to our garden with this blood orange buttermilk pound cake. It’s delicious and beautiful, just like the tree that we loved so much.

We’re grateful for all the wonderful blood oranges that have graced our kitchen and hope you’ll enjoy this Seasons bounty of blood oranges too.

-diane and todd

Here’s some of our previous blood orange recipes you might enjoy:

Blood Orange Bars with Brown Butter Crust Recipe 

Blood Orange Margarita Recipe 

Blood Orange Pops Recipe

Blood Orange Ricotta Cookies Recipe 

Blood Orange Chocolate Chunk Cookies Recipe

Yield: 1 Loaf

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Adapted from Fine Cooking's Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake. Our pound cake is made with blood orange juice and zest but to really highlight the flavor of blood oranges we will serve this loaf with a quick and easy blood orange sauce either drizzled over top or alongside to dunk in.

1 3/4 cups (220g) all-purpose flour1 teaspoon baking powder1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt1/2 cup (113g or one stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature1 cup (200g) sugarfinely grated zest of 2 blood oranges2 large eggs, at room temperature1/2 cup (120ml) buttermilk1/4 cup (60ml) fresh blood orange juice3 tablespoons (45ml) fresh blood orange juice1/2 cup (60g) confectioners’ sugarPreheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan.Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt for 20 seconds or until well combined. Set aside.Beat together the butter, sugar and blood orange zest until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes in a stand mixer. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beat in the eggs, one at a time until blended.Mix in 1/3 of the flour mixture until just combined. Mix in the buttermilk and blood orange juice until just combined. Mix in the remaining flour until just combined, making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl.Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 1 hour or until golden and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center. Let the cake cool for about 20 minutes. Gently remove the pound cake from the pan. Allow to cool completely.After the cake is completely cool, make the sauce. Whisk together the blood orange juice and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Spoon the sauce over the pound cake or serve alongside to dunk in.

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Girl Hunter Promo Video & Buttermilk Fried Rabbit Recipe

This past Summer we traveled to Texas to film Georgia Pellegrini’s promo video for her new book, Girl Hunter. We were thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to work with Georgia. Have you heard of Georgia and her accomplishments or visited her site? If not, you should, she is amazing.

Georgia graduated from Harvard and worked in finance at Lehman Brothers in New York City. But something drew her to food and so she left finance and entered culinary school at The French Culinary Institute in New York City, where she graduated at the top of her class. To top off it all off, she went on to work as a classically trained Chef at some of New York City’s finest restaurants and also in France. It’s jaw dropping to just read of her credentials, but the most important factor in all this is that Georgia is the sweetest, smartest, down to Earth person  you’ll ever meet.

To leave such a high profile finance career and to return to food and the land is what Georgia is all about. Returning to the heart of food, back to the land and to re-connect with all that is important to Georgia about harvesting food is the soul of this talented woman.

Now her newest book, Girl Hunter is out and we were so honored to be able to shoot the promo for it. Georgia’s story is quite compelling and it’s inspiring to see someone choose such a different path from where she started.

Here is Georgia in her own words: “I hunt and gather myself, and hone my pioneer skills. I seek ingredients that are anchored to the seasons and a definite place. It is the kind of food once served in simple restaurants and in homes by housewives, now, by grandmothers, by families for generations, and today by people – culinary artisans – choosing to do the hard work required to live off the best their hands can produce.”

Those words are powerful and there’s so much more of her wisdom and honesty in her new book Girl Hunter. Treat yourself to a copy!

Promo Video we produced for Girl Hunter

Here’s an fantastic recipe that Georgia is sharing from her book: Buttermilk Fried Rabbit
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Buttermilk Fried Rabbit Recipe  

From the book Girl Hunter by Georgia Pellegrini.  Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Lifelong, a member of the Perseus Books Group.  Copyright © 2011.

Serves 4

Also try: chicken, turkey, squirrel, dove, upland game birds, or any other young game meat

 1 young cottontail rabbit, cut into serving pieces2 cups buttermilk1 medium-size onion, sliced3 garlic cloves, diced1 teaspoon dried oregano1 teaspoon dried thyme1 teaspoon dried tarragon, or 1 teaspoon each of your three favorite dried herbs1 teaspoon smoked paprika1 tablespoon cayenne2 cups all-purpose flour1 teaspoon garlic powder1 teaspoon onion powderSalt and pepper2 to 3 cups grape seed or vegetable oil

1. Soak the rabbit overnight in the buttermilk, along with the onion, garlic, herbs, paprika, and 1 teaspoon of the cayenne.

2. Drain in a colander, leaving some herbs on the rabbit. In a large resealable plastic bag or in a large bowl, mix the flour with the garlic and onion powder and remaining 2 teaspoons of cayenne, as well as a pinch of salt and pepper. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat until a pinch of flour starts to sizzle when dropped in the hot oil, but not so hot as for the oil to be smoking.

3. Place the rabbit pieces in the bag with the flour mixture and shake until thoroughly coated. Do this in small batches, dredging just enough rabbit to fit in the pan at one time.

4. Add the rabbit to the skillet and fry on one side for about 10 minutes, until golden brown, then use tongs to turn the pieces over and fry for another 10 minutes, again until golden brown. Be careful to keep the oil hot enough to fry the rabbit, but not so that it burns.

5. Remove the rabbit from the skillet and place it on a wire rack over paper towels. Season immediately with salt and pepper to taste, to help preserve the crispiness for the table. This is good served immediately or also good cold for lunch the next day.

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Buttermilk Scones

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