Orange Poppy Seed Cake

This last weekend was Easter weekend. Saturday morning my work held an Easter egg hunt and breakfast for the community which I always enjoy being a part of. Over the course of the week prior I had helped stuff thousands of eggs full of chocolates for the little ones, and my perfectionist tendencies for matching colors made my co-workers roll their eyes. I see nothing wrong with aesthetically pleasing color arrangements, however I'm sure no little kid will even notice, but I know that they match and that's enough for me.

I helped out at the food table for the egg hunt because duh. At work I'm always picked to do anything with food because I enjoy it and I talk about it enough that I think most of my peers tune me out until I mention 'cupcakes' or 'cookies'. None are too interested in the 'healthy talk'. Anyway I decided to play around with my food display a bit, knowing full well it would soon be destroyed by the voraciously hungry flocks of humans. My greatest piece of food architecture was this yogurt pyramid. Many of the tiny humans thought it was funny to try to destroy the structure by taking yogurt from the bottom. BUT! Their attempts were no match for this pyramids fortitude and the integrity of the structure remained! Until all the yogurt was gone of course. I had some fun with the bananas as well :) I have always been a fan of presentation and I can miss an opportunity :)

Nearly all the eggs are already gone!

We had so many oranges left over from the egg hunt that I took an entire box home with me. Immediately I began to scour my favorite food website TasteSpotting, for inspiration for orange flavored treats to make for Easter dessert. I came across a few orange poppy seed combinations which I thought was ingenious considering lemon poppy seed is a well know and well liked pair. So Easter morning I started baking my famous Snicker Doodles that were requested by my boyfriends aunt, and this lovely cake :) I also made a lightly sweet coconut cream drizzle to top this cake :)

Orange Poppy Seed Cake:

Dry:

2 cups almond flour

1 cup tapioca starch

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons poppy seeds

Wet:

1 cup coconut cream (from a can, I get mine at trader joes :) )

6 Tablespoons coconut oil, melted but not hot

1 cup organic unrefined sugar

4 eggs

3/4 cups fresh squeezed orange juice, roughly two large oranges.

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

orange zest to desired taste, I used roughly 1.5 of an orange. 

Coconut Cream Drizzle:

Left over coconut cream from the can (about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup)

1/2 cup of sugar or less

Orange zest. 

IMPORTANT TIPS: Zest the orange before juicing it. It might seem obvious but some people don't think of that. Also if you place the orange in the fridge for an hour before juicing it, it will yield more juice :)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a bundt cake pan with coconut oil*

1. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Melt the coconut oil, make sure that it is not hot before you use it in the recipe. I usually melt more coconut oil then I need, because its much easier to measure it as a liquid than a solid.
3. Stir coconut oil and sugar together in a separate bowl. Add the eggs one at a time to temper. 
4. Next scoop the coconut cream from your can and melt slightly in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Add the 1 cup to the egg mixture. Again make sure the coconut cream is not hot or you will cook the eggs.
5. Stir in vanilla, orange juice, and orange zest. 
6. Blend the dry mix with the wet mix until combined and free of any lumps. 
7. Now pour the batter into your bundt pan and place in the oven :) Cook for one hour or until toothpick comes out clean. 
8. Prepare the coconut cream drizzle while the cake is baking. Simply mix the three ingredients together. Add as much zest as you would like. I personally enjoy the taste of coconut cream without sugar, so I add even less then 1/2 cup  if it is just me eating it, or omit it all together. It is totally up to your taste :)
9. Once the cake has cooled, drizzle the coconut cream on top and serve :)

* : SUPER VERY IMPORTANT!!! OMG READ THIS: So I thought that this cake was a fail. I didn't even bring it in to share with my boyfriends family because I didn't want to share a fail cake with everyone. It was stuck to the pan and I just could not get it out and I thought that surely it had to suck. So when I returned home I decided to try to cut it out and hope to salvage it. IT ACTUALLY SLICED OUT SO EASILY. And tastes amazing! So the lesson here today kids. Be generous with your coconut oil spray.

yummy goodness :) ENJOY