Ireland: Let's Eat Cake

Full disclosure: this recipe does not include whiskey or beer, but it is well worth your interest. Stay tuned for a future post on two fabulous recipes using Bailey's Irish Cream. Today, this is a delicate, delicious, butter-rich cake with or without an orange-lemon glaze, and it's gorgeous!!

My grandmother Bridget O'Day was an amazing professional cook who worked in the kitchen of her Chicago parish. This recipe was handed down to me from her daughter, and I remember baking this when I was in high school. It was called Hartigan Cake, but after dabbling into my Irish genealogy, I am certain the cake was named after Bridget's grandmother, my great-great grandmother, Bridget Hardiman from County Roscommon Ireland. I point this out as the ingredients call for sour milk a key ingredient in rural Irish baking.

The Irish language word for milk is bán-chia which translates as white meat. Milk continues to be a staple in the Irish diet. Before refrigeration, the shelf life of milk was less than one day in summer. The milk turned sour from bacteria that was then killed by heat during the baking process, so it was used in many baked recipes to avoid waste. Today, people substitute buttermilk in recipes calling for sour milk, as I did below.

                                                           Bridget O'Day ~18 (1920)

Hardiman (formerly Hartigan) Cake

Ingredients: Cake
2 cups sugar
4 cups flour
2 cups room temp buttermilk (can make by adding 2 tablespoons lemon juice in regular milk)
1 cup melted salted butter
2 eggs - room temp so rising compounds aren't shocked by cold ingredients
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
Juice of one whole orange
Zest of two oranges

Glaze - Optional as cake is tasty with or without this step.
1 cup sugar
Juice of one lemon
Juice of two oranges
Combine and let these sit on counter while cake bakes. Most of the sugar will dissolve. OK to have some sugar stay on cake when basted.

Method:
Prepare bundt or tube pan with spray oil containing flour. The flour allows the cake to rise up in the pan. Preheat oven to 350. Photo shown was baked in a Nordic ware bundt pan ~$28 on Amazon.

Cream butter and sugar about 5 minutes. Add eggs and buttermilk. Add dry ingredients. Last add orange zest and orange juice blend by hand and add to prepared pan. Bake 1 hour or until done.

Cool in bundt pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan and place over cooling rack to catch excess glaze. While hot prick the top and sides of cake with tooth pick or skewer and baste spoonfuls of glaze over cake. Cool 2 hours. Sprinkle with powder sugar.

                                                              Looks too good to eat!!

My sous-chef, Ducati, waits patiently for the crumbs.