Two Creations

A friend of mine had asked for a Tanjore painting as soon as she moved in to Goa 2 years back.

I finally finished the painting yesterday..a few days before she leaves for her next posting in Mumbai!

and now I'm tired!

As someone said "Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."

But nothing perks me up like baking so here's something I made from the Deeba's wonderful blog...

Gâteau à l'Orange

4 oranges
Zest of 1 orange
100 g of softened butter
100 g sugar
150 g flour
3 eggs, separated
11/2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp rum
1 Tbsp orange essence (or Cointreau)
1 pinch of salt
Butter (to grease the pan)

Method:
Heat the oven to 170C.
Grease a 6" cake pan, and line the bottom with parchment
In a bowl, beat the sugar and softened butter together.
Add the yolks one by one to the butter and sugar mixture, taking care to mix each one thoroughly before adding the next one and beat until you obtain a smooth batter.
Add the rum and the orange essence/Cointreau and mix again.
Mix the flour and baking powder together and add it to the batter by "raining it in". Mix well.
Cut and juice the oranges. Pour half of the resulting juice in the batter, add the zest and mix.
Beat the whites until firm with the pinch of salt. Add them delicately to the batter.
Pour the batter into the pan and bake for an hour, checking the coloration from time to time. It will be dark orange when done.

Pour the other half of the juice into the cake while it's still warm. Take care not to pour it too fast and not to let the cake cool too much before you do so.

Serves 8.