Page Tangerines for Pixie Month
A new section and a new cake recipe. (This Little Valley contains multitudes)
I’ve added a new section to This Little Valley: Notes to Self1.
This section is inspired by the Notes app on my iPhone, a chaotic zone of grocery lists, recipes, story ideas, journal entries, and all manner of language that I find funny, moving, or both. It’s a section full of little bits of life that I want to remember, some of which I’d like to share here.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m working on a project with the Ojai Valley Museum: a series of interviews to inform a forthcoming exhibit about the past and future of agriculture in Ojai. So, over the past twelve weeks, I’ve spent a great deal of time chatting with farmers and farmworkers. I’ve also sharpened my citrus palette.
And as we roll into April — known throughout this little valley as Pixie Month — I must confess that the tangerine I’m enamored with is not the pixie, but the page.
I became acquainted with the page during a trip to Churchill Orchard, owned and operated by “Tangerine Man” Jim Churchill. As far as I can tell, Jim wears an orange article of clothing for every day of harvest season. I really love this kind of commitment to a bit.
The first time I came to visit Jim at his East End orchard, he wasn’t there. He forgot our appointment. (It’s his busiest time of the year). I took the opportunity to lurk around the farm and chat with his employees. A man named Ariel handed me a page tangerine and kindly offered to cut it for me. I accepted the fruit but refused help2, saying something along the lines of, ‘I grew up in Ojai, I don’t need a knife.’ I subsequently squished the page in an effort to get at the fruit inside. That’s the first difference between pages and pixies: Pages are impossible to peel, even for a professional like myself.3
Another thing you may or may not know about me is that I love to bake. It’s a longtime hobby that was supercharged during the pandemic. So, inspired by the Page, I hunted around for a cake recipe, arriving at this Orange Upside Down Cake recipe from Broma Bakery.
I modified it a bit — my modifications are reflected in the ingredients list/instructions below. And readers, it turned out SO GOOD that I wanted to share it with you.
If you make this, please let me know how it turns out in the comments.
Happy (almost) Pixie Month!
Andra
PAGE TANGERINE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE (adapted from Broma Bakery recipe)
INGREDIENTS
For The Topping
7-10 page tangerines
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup page juice
For The Cake
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon of page zest (original recipe calls for “a pinch” — I like it zesty)
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup almond flour (I’m going to try polenta next time as an experiment.)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper so that it covers the bottom and goes up the sides of the pan. Fold parchment paper so that it hugs the sides of the pan, like an upside-down hat. Butter the pan or spray with non-stick spray
With the skin still on, slice the pages in 1/4 inch slices. Use a paring knife to carefully remove the skin from the citrus slices (like cutting off the outer ring). Doing it this way will ensure your citrus stays intact and does not break apart when you slice it.
Microwave the sugar and juice together until the sugar dissolves completely, about 45 seconds. Pour half of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared cake pan, then line the bottom with prepared page slices. Once arranged, pour the remaining liquid over the pages. Set aside.
In a stand mixer on medium speed, beat the sugar, page zest, and eggs together until pale yellow, about 1 minute. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can also do this by hand with a whisk.
Keep the mixer going at a medium-low speed, slowly streaming in the olive oil to emulsify. Make sure you go slowly to prevent the batter from splitting. Add in the vanilla extract and mix well.
Add the dry ingredients (all purpose flour, almond flour, baking powder, and salt) and stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
Pour the batter over the sliced pages into your prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the cake is a lightly golden brown and a knife inserted into the middle comes out mostly clean.
Allow the cake to cool completely (seriously). When ready to serve, flip upside down to turn out the cake onto a large plate. Peel the parchment paper away from the pages and serve your cake!
Which is probably a stupid title because they’re really notes to readers. But —still — I like it. Welcome to my interior monologue.
An unfortunate character trait.
This is a joke.