This is off the back of a packet of chemical cake yeast (an Italian equivalent of baking powder), and was a very pleasant surprise. It's essentially a quick schiacciata alla Fiorentina, the flat orangy cake that accompanies Florentines through the Carnival season. You'll need:
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Ingredients:
- 10 tablespoons (not heaping, but not level either) flour
- 5 tablespoons sugar
- 5 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 5 tablespoons milk
- An egg
- The grated zest of an organically grown orange, and also its juice
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- An 8 by 10-inch (18 by 24 cm) pan
- Powdered sugar
Preparation:
Preheat your oven to 360 F (180 C).Combine all the ingredients except the baking powder in a bowl, and beat the resulting batter for 10 minutes by hand, or about 5 minutes with an electric mixer at medium power, until it drips in ribbons from the beater. Line the pan with oven parchment and pour the batter into it. Bake the cake for about a half hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out dry.
Turn it out onto a rack, let it cool, and when it has cooled dust it with powdered sugar.
A variation? If you want it richer, you can split it and fill it with either a thin layer of fairly firm crema pasticcera, or crema chantilly, a libidinous concoction make by whipping cream with a little powdered sugar, and folding it gently into an equal volume of crema pasticcera. If you choose to fill your schiacciata, you may want to make the traditional recipe, which produces a larger cake than this one does.
