orange blossom – Better with Lemon

On Sunday, Steve and I will travel to Cyprus for a week. We’ll spend some time with my family in Nicosia, travel a bit, and then all go to Paphos for Easter weekend. While I was growing up, Easter was a holiday I was ambivalent about. On the one hand, we had no school and the weather was almost always beautiful, with wildflowers blooming everywhere around our house. On the other hand, Easter week was so gloomy. There was the somber church service on Thursday night, when a big cross was carried around by the priest while chanting ominously “crucify him, crucify him” in ancient Greek. Then on Friday night, church service was equally dreary with a huge casket-like box in the middle of the church, representing Jesus’s tomb, completely covered in wildflowers and flowering herbs like rosemary. So, it was a gloomy service but a well perfumed one, adding to the dissonance of the occasion.

Things would change on Saturday night when there was the midnight service celebrating the resurrection. At precisely midnight, the church lights would turn down, everyone would go quiet, and the priest would emerge from the apse with a single lit candle, proceeding to light the candles of worshippers in front of him who would then light the candles of the people behind them, and so on, causing a wave of light to swiftly spread through the church and out into the courtyard, all while everyone was chanting the Byzantine resurrection hymn that they learned from the time they were in first grade (“Christ has risen from the dead, he has conquered death…”). But even this seemingly joyous night was fraught with some anxiety for me because the custom was (and still is) for men to light up giant bonfires outside the church and to explode homemade fireworks. Every year there were several men who lost fingers, entire hands, eyes, and they continue to do so today.

On this trip, we will be with my family on Saturday night in a little chapel outside the hotel we are staying in in Paphos, the westernmost city in Cyprus, on the Mediterranean. Bucking tradition, the service will begin at 11pm instead of midnight (because the priest has to be at his regular big church for the midnight service), which means that we will be able to go have the traditional Easter soup after the service and go to bed at a slightly more reasonable hour.

My family is not religious (my mom is the only one who really believes in God, but she has no affinity for the church and its priests). But there is something about Easter in Cyprus, specifically the Saturday midnight mass, that we all find beautiful. When you look past the religious symbols and iconography, ignore the mythical resurrection story, what you find is part of the soul of the people of the island. For those few moments when the holy light sweeps the darkened church that is filled with people’s voices chanting, you can’t help but feel a sense of awe. For tradition, for community, for family.

All of this to get me to share with you this recipe, which has nothing to do with Easter, but a lot to do with Cyprus. I fiddled around with a recipe I found on Food and Wine for a grapefruit cake one day and managed to turn it into something that we immediately loved. This isn’t a showstopper visually. It’s a simple, toothsome cake, but it is filled with flavors of early Mediterranean spring, combining orange blossoms and the oranges they turn into. It’s hearty but delicate. It demands your attention with every bite. So, enjoy it and happy Easter or happy Passover if you are celebrating next week.

Orange Blossom Cornmeal Cake – Adapted from Food and Wine

Ingredients:

3/4 stick (85g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup medium-grind cornmeal
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
1/3 cup and two teaspoons (85g) vegetable oil
finely grated zest of one orange
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon orange blossom water

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly grease a 9-inch cake pan (or springform pan). Line the bottom with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour with the cornmeal, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the eggs with the melted butter, oil, orange zest, orange juice, and orange blossom water until they are combined. While whisking constantly, add the butter mixture to the flour mixture in a slow, steady stream. Whisk just until well blended. You can also use a spatula to finish mixing the batter. Don’t overmix.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes, until golden and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Transfer the cake to a rack to cool for 10 minutes. Run a sharp paring knife around the edge of the cake, then invert it onto the rack (or remove the sides of the springform pan). Peel off the parchment paper. Carefully flip the cake right side up and let cool.

Before serving you can sprinkle powdered sugar on the cake but it’s really not needed.

Memory is a funny thing. The older I get, the more unpredictable it becomes. On the one hand, I have a hard time remembering what I ate yesterday for lunch or what was the plot of the book I just finished reading two nights ago. On the other hand, random memories will be pop up, seemingly for the first time, out of nowhere. The float to consciousness like bubbles from the dark, deep corners of my mind.

Often, these memories are triggered by a smell or a taste. I am well aware that our sense of smell is tightly linked to our memory function, but still, every time it happens, I marvel at the ability of a group of molecules that reach my nose or tongue to evoke such strong emotional recollections.

The first time I made this orange blossom ice cream, I had exactly this kind of experience. I had just finished cooking the custard base and I added the three tablespoons of orange blossom water that the recipe called for. Since the custard was steaming hot, the smell wafted up to my nose. The memory it triggered was of all the times that my mom made us a simple custard, flavored with orange blossom water (called anthonero), to have as dessert.

I hadn’t thought of that custard in decades. And yet, as soon as I remembered it, as soon as I smelled it in the bowl and tasted it on the spoon, I had a clear recollection of how it tasted of spring, how its creamy consistency coated our mouths, and how my sister and I always ignored my mom’s warnings to wait until it cooled down to eat it.

I knew that this recipe would be amazing, even before I chilled the custard in the fridge and froze it in the ice cream maker. I’ve made it many times since then and at some point I decided to add chopped pistachios for a taste and texture contrast, which turned out to be a fantastic idea.

This is a very easy ice cream to make. It uses cornstarch to thicken cream and milk into a quick custard. The trick is to make sure there are no cornstarch lumps and to cook it just enough time that it thickens and you can’t taste the “floury” cornstarch anymore. And if you are like me, the toughest part is to try not to eat it hot out of the pan, instead of chilling it and turning it into ice cream.

Orange Blossom Ice Cream with Pistachios

1 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons orange blossom water
1/3 cup shelled pistachios, chopped

In a small bowl or a 2-cup measuring cup, stir together the cornstarch and heavy cream using a fork, making sure there are no lumps. Place the milk and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring so that the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and stir in the heavy cream mixture. Return the pan to the stove and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. It should coat the back of the spatula or spoon. Taste the mixture: make sure it does not have any floury taste, if it does, continue to simmer it until the cornstarch is cooked.

Remove from the heat and add the orange blossom water. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then churn in your ice cream maker according to your manufacturer’s directions.

Add the chopped pistachios towards the end of the churning or layer them into the ice cream as you spoon it into its container from the ice cream maker.