Blood Orange and Sesame Seeds Cake with Rhubarb Compote

On my previous blog(s) over the past few years I have written quite a lot about food and specially about food recipes however I always felt there was something missing on the way that I shared those moments as the way I wrote did not reflect who I am.

I took a break from it – from writing, from the blog, from cooking and exploring the culinary world – and went almost a year without publishing anything but I did miss writing, taking pictures and open myself on a journal – which is what this is and what I plan to do once again from now on, here, at ‘my white mornings‘.

During this hiatus I went back to cooking and trying new recipes, for me and my friends, taking pictures and writing – writing only to myself but I kept doing it! Not long ago I started a bullet journal to keep notes of my daily life + most important moments, a habit that I lost along the way!

I wanna start sharing it once again and that’s my goal with this blog. To once again share my imperfect life only this time is two of us instead of just one.

Blood Orange and Sesame Seeds Cake with Rhubarb Compote

Let’s be real – the single best thing about living in England in winter is the cold and grey days rhubarb season! Good or the only good thing? 🙂 Well, at least this year we had snow (it’s snowing outside and only 2 days left until Spring!!) which is pretty awesome but rhubarb as well as blood oranges are the two things that we live for in winter. Their colour and flavour are at their best now so we are making sure we ‘use’ them wisely!

Grab a fork as we are about to eat cake (unless you eat it with a spoon and that’s ok too!). We made this cake in more than one occasion this winter by just tweaking a few things here and there.

To make the cake extra special we added rhubarb compote and blood orange curd. The recipes were on our previous blog but will leave both recipes below in case you want to check them.

Blood Orange and Black Sesame Seeds Cake Recipe

ingredients:

165 g butter, at room temperature
165 g sugar
3 eggs
100 g sifted wholemeal flour
50 g sifted plain flour
1 + 1/2 tsp. baking powder
zest of 1 blood orange
3 tsp. black sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 180º C.
Start by mixing on a bowl the butter with sugar and beat for at least 15 minutes until the mixture is creamy. Then add the eggs one at a time while continuing to beat. Now fold the previously sifted flour, the baking powder, blood orange zest and sesame seeds.
Pour the mixture into a 20 cm cake tin – previously greased with butter and flour.
Bake in a preheated over for 35 minutes, at 180º C, until golden on top and completely cooked.
Allow it to cool completely before assembling the cake.

ingredients (for the topping):

175 g mascarpone cheese
175 g natural greek yoghurt
1 tsp. powdered sugar
1 blood orange sliced in halves
1 tsp. black sesame seeds
1 tsp. dried roses
a few coconut chips

Mix the mascarpone cheese, greek yoghurt and powdered sugar in a bowl and beat it until well involved and creamy, for about 2 minutes.

assembling the cake:

The cake layer should be around 3 cm tall. Doesn’t need to be perfect but relatively uniform.
Place cake layer on a cake stand and spread the mascarpone and yoghurt mixture in an uniform/flat way and place add the blood orange slices on top. In the middle add the blood orange curd and rhubarb compote (both recipes below) in the middle.
Sprinkle the black sesame seeds, dried roses and coconut chips on top.
Place in the fridge until serving time.

Rhubarb Compote Recipe

ingredients:

400 g rhubarb (4/5 tales)
2 tbsp. port wine
1 tbsp. honey
75 g sugar

Start by cutting the rhubarb into 1 cm pieces. Place the rhubarb, port wine, honey and sugar into a saucepan over a medium heat. Let the sugar dissolve and reduce the heat a bit. Simmer for 15 more minutes. Remove from heat, allow it to cool, pour into a air tight container and store it up to 1 week in the fridge.

Blood Orange Curd Recipe