When Life Gives You Currants
The other day, my mom and I drove a good distance to a massive berry farm to hunt for gooseberries. Fresh gooseberries are a hard commodity to come by in my neck of the woods and I have been itching to get my hands on some. My grandfather’s favorite pie was gooseberry pie, and I’ve only ever made one using gooseberries from a can. This time, I wanted to try making it with fresh berries.
Well, when we got to the farm, we had no clue where the gooseberries were. We were directed by one of the workers to a distant part of the field. I don’t know if she misdirected us or we misunderstood, but we could not find green gooseberries anywhere. We instead found berries that looked like gooseberries, but they were red. However, the lady did mention that they grew red gooseberries, so that’s what we assumed we had found.
After picking almost a full bucket of these little devils, we headed to the stand to pay for our berries. When we arrived at the stand, we saw flats full of pre-picked berries that looked identical to our own. The only problem was, they weren’t labeled as gooseberries. They were labeled as currants!!! We ended up confirming that what we picked were indeed currants, not gooseberries. At first, I was a little disappointed. I had been waiting weeks to go gooseberry picking and was very excited to make a fresh gooseberry pie. We were also in a bit of a rush and didn’t have extra time to fix our mistake. However, I came to discover when life gives you currants, you bake things with currants in them!
The Recipe
Since I had no idea what to make with currants, I decided to consult the ultimate source of inspiration: Pinterest! As I was scrolling through the images, gathering ideas, I came across a recipe for red currant orange loaf cake with poppy seeds. When I clicked on the recipe, almost all of the ingredients were listed in grams instead of cups and teaspoons. Having been blessed with a small digital cooking scale for Christmas, I decided to finally put it to good use.
This recipe is adapted from another recipe. Because converting the original to cups and teaspoons created some odd measurements, I used my judgment on what measurements I thought would be best. I also added and omitted some ingredients.
The cake ended up being really delicious. One recommendation I have is when you go to check the “doneness” of your cake with a toothpick, insert it in the middle ALL the way down. The top two-thirds of my cake cooked nicely when I checked it, but when I placed the toothpick farther down, I noticed it was still a little under-cooked. Also, do not worry if the middle of your cake caves a bit. That’s typical for a lot of loaf cakes.
Blessings on your home and table, ~Natalie
Red Currant Orange Poppy Seed Loaf Cake
Adapted from Daisy’s World.
Serves 12
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon poppy seeds
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- zest of 1 orange
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons fresh orange juice
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 3/4 cup fresh red currants
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
- In a small bowl, combine the first four ingredients.
- In a large bowl, rub the orange zest and sugar together with your fingers until the sugar becomes fragrant with the scent of orange.
- Using an electric mixer, beat in the butter for three minutes until well creamed.
- Add eggs, vanilla, and 1/4 cup orange juice.
- Add half of the flour mixture. Mix in the buttermilk. Beat in the remaining flour mixture.
- Fold in currants.
- Pour batter into loaf pan and bake 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Let cool completely before removing from pan.
- Whisk together powdered sugar and remaining orange juice. Drizzle over cooled loaf cake. Let glaze set.
For more cake recipes, check out my lemon lavender cake!
Leave a Reply