Tribute To ‘Dear’ Pistachio - Food That Celebrates Her Love of Food & Her Life!

In my fondness for Nigella Lawson and food, I joined Nigella.Com some years ago. I memorise here my anticipation of posting my first thread of introducing myself. I remember the friendliness that was shown to me and Pi was one of the first to say hello in her jovial way. Vi and Pi also went onto setting up a forum of their own called “Vi’s Pantry”.

My dear friend Maria of The Goddess’s Kitchen came up with a wonderful idea for Pi’s on line friends at the ‘Pantry’ that we all make a dish from Feast, Food that celebrates life by Nigella Lawson. This is a wonderful way to pay tribute to Pi because through our love of food it brought us all together and it seems appropriate to remember her in this way.

Pi’s love of food shines through, which you can view from her blog Pistachio en la cocina with outstanding creative dishes and bakes! She enjoyed cooking and eating well and her favourite cuisine was North African and Eastern Mediterranean.

My obsession for chocolate soon spread around Nigella.Com and I was fondly nicknamed Chocy! Due to my old nickname, I felt it essential to make something with chocolate involved in a recipe for my tribute to Pi who sadly passed away a few days ago. I have chosen the Chocolate Orange Cake from Feast in my remembrance of a charming on line friend Pi.

Chocolate Orange Cake

Ingredients
2 small or 1 large thin-skinned orange, approx 375g total weight
6 eggs
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
200g ground almonds
250g caster sugar
50g cocoa powder
Orange peel for decoration if wished

Method

Put the whole orange(s) in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours or until soft. When cooled, cut the oranges in half and remove any pips. Pulp everything together – pith, peel and all – in a food processor.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4. Butter and line a 20cm springform tin.

Add the eggs, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, almonds, sugar and cocoa powder to the orange in the food processor. Blitz until everything is a combined mixture, but still slightly knobbly flecks of pureed orange. Pour and scrape the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 1 hour and a cake tester should come out clean when ready. Check the cake after 45 minutes because it may need covering with foil to prevent the cake from burning before it is fully baked, the cake may need a little less time baking depending on your oven.

Leave the cake to cool in the tin on a wire rack. When the cake is cold take it out of the tin and remove the baking paper. Decorate with strips of orange peel or coarsely grated zest if you wish, or leave its darkly beautiful plainness unadorned.

Source of this recipe comes from Nigella Lawson - Feast, food that celebrates life cookbook.