Blood Oranges and Regular Oranges

[BakerAunt]

I have been looking for an oil-based Bundt cake. This one came into my email about a month ago:

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Blood Orange Glaze

I think that blood oranges are out of season, so I may substitute regular oranges. Has anyone had blood oranges, and what is the difference?

If I bake this recipe, I plan to replace the olive oil with canola oil. (Every tablespoon of olive oil has 2g saturated fat, while canola oil has 1g per tablespoon.) I'm also considering reducing the oil to 1 cup. I'll replace the regular milk with buttermilk, which I will increase by 1/3 cup to make up for the oil. It still has a lot of saturated fat from the eggs, but I think that those are necessary for the cake's structure, and eggs do have important nutrients.

I will omit the glaze.

Advice? Suggestions?

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[Mike Nolan]

According to the web, one of the varieties of blood oranges is available through May but the other variety (which I think is the more common one) only goes through March.

Aside from tasting them in the grocery store a few times, we've never bought them. I have no idea what difference they would make in an icing aside possibly from color.

My wife is a big fan of the cara cara orange, which also has a short season.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Mike. I'll try it with regular oranges and the changes I noted above, then post about the results.

[RiversideLen]

BakerAunt, as far as olive oil v canola, I understand canola has more omega 6 fats whereas olive oil has more omega 3. Omega 3 is a healthier fat than omega 6. So that is something to consider too.

[BakerAunt]

Ah, Len, you've waded into an area that has driven me nuts for some time now. I've scoured the internet, and there does not seem to be much agreement on olive oil vs. canola oil. One source (Livestrong) suggested that olive oil is only considered healthier because it is healthier than the butter it replaces. Supposedly canola lowers cholesterol. However, one of my sisters considers canola oil bad for you and avoids it. I don't think this question will be solved anytime soon.

So, what to do? I use both. In some breads, I like olive oil, and it's one that I reach for when sauteeing vegetables for soups, pizza, spaghetti sauce, roasting chicken or vegetables, etc.. If I'm browning meat, I use grapeseed oil, which seems to hold up better than the other two. I also prefer grapeseed oil (also 2g saturated fat per Tbs.) for brushing on my sourdough crackers before baking; canola seemed to have an aftertaste, and I did not care for olive oil on those.

Since the recipe, as I've now baked it, called for so much oil, I chose the canola. I was also uncertain about olive oil flavor in the cake. In a rye bread, however, I usually choose olive oil.

[Mike Nolan]

I've switched from canola oil back to corn oil. Less processing.

Most olive oil has too overpowering a flavor for me, it's OK as a dip but it takes over the dishes you put it in.

I do my cooking mainly with butter, though, and my cholesterol numbers have gone down since I started doing that.

[BakerAunt]

When I was speaking to Cass last week, he asked about my current baking. I told him about this recipe, and he said that olive oil and orange complement each other nicely. I might try part olive oil next time I bake the cake, since I too worry that on its own, that much olive oil would be overpowering.

[BakerAunt]

So, in late February or early March 2020, I found blood oranges on sale at Kroger for $1.99 a bag and recalled this recipe and our discussion. I've now made this chocolate cake again with blood oranges, a vanilla loaf cake with blood oranges, and today I used the last one in a biscotti recipe.

Here is what I've discovered:

Blood oranges do not yield a lot of zest, but it is more flavorful than that of typical oranges.

Blood oranges do not yield a lot of juice, but it is sweet and a beautiful dark red.

Blood orange zest and juice infuse a tantalizing, light orange taste with an element for which I do not have the words--perhaps deeper? That flavor came through as well in the glaze on the cakes, and the glaze was a lovely deep pink.

I like blood oranges in baking much better than regular oranges. I noted when I made my Limpa bread, using regular, organic orange zest that I did not really care for the zest flavor, and that it seemed different from when I first started baking this bread back in the mid-90s. I ate those oranges after zesting and didn't think the flavor all that good. I'm going to need to investigate kinds of oranges next time we are in Florida.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt.

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