I’ve been obsessing over winter’s best fruits.

Citrus

I’ve had crates over crates of different citrus fruits that I could lay my hands on.
It is fascinating how life gives us these fruits on the days we need them the most; gloomy, grey, dark, and rainy. Nature gives us these colorful fruits hanging from brown and green trees with leaves glistening with winter rain waiting to be harvested.

The colors fascinate me. I would only like the gloomy rainy days when I don’t make any plans and stay in bed. Or when it stops raining at the moment I’m stepping out of the house. The sight of bitter oranges on the branches of the line of trees in Monot street makes my day. It makes me dance with joy when now in March, those branches carry small yellowish white buds instead of the fruits and the scent of orange blossom fills the streets with a beautiful fragrance that covers up the recent smell of trash that is occasionally looming over Beirut.

My latest obsession was with blood orange.

Those berry flavored oranges (yes, they have a different flavor) with their gorgeous color. I couldn’t get enough.
I could slice it and just stare and contemplate at the distribution of colors inside the tiny tears of orange pulp. How the bloody red natural pigment dissipates into a sunset ombre pink and orange. I can keep going on. But we’ve got a cake recipe to share.

That time I read and share a post about the illness of comparing yourself to others by HowSweetEats gave me a new reading on how I should perceive my work and posts and rhythm. So far, I’m keeping a good place and consistency. I am happy with the work on publishing. And as I said before, I am doing this for myself and sharing it with those who are interested.
I’ve also learned to be supportive of those who are worthy of support. To say things I mean and give out words of encouragement to those whose work I admire.
I learned to be inspired by those whose work I look up to.
My top two people I know (know and met) from the online community whose work I admire and love are TheTravelBuds and MZCuisine for the amount of good work they put out there. I’ve said these words directly to them and here it is again.

This cake recipe came out of jealousy. Of being inspired. I wanted to have that chocolate cake in a cool bundt pan with that pink glaze swirling and dripping down on its sides. So I looked up some recipes and read them through and got the jush of how it should be.
Then I ran into the kitchen cradling blood oranges in my arms like a baby.
I made this chocolate blood orange cake and another cake without chocolate to shoot different styles. But to my major bad luck, the white cake got stuck to the pan despite my attempt with greasing the pan, TWICE!!! Yes. I did the recipe twice and both times it got stuck. Terrible

But here is the cake that worked.
Blood Orange Dark Chocolate Cake with Blood Orange Glaze

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