Tales of the Domestically Challenged: Clementine Cake

Like the pumpkin pies that preceded this cake this was another one of those recipes: "Oh it looks easy enough! It has very few ingredients and everyone is raving about it in the comments."

Clementine cake crossed my radar via Treehugger's Weekday Vegetarian feature but it's the creation of Nigella Lawson who says she cooks "for her own pleasure, for enjoyment." Nigella "finds cooking therapeutic." She wrote a book called How to be a Domestic Goddess. The cover has a feminine, pinkish-white, rosette-topped cupcake on the cover and here is a description from Amazon:

"The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces isn't good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that's the best we can manage, but at other times we don't want to feel like a postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched woman but, rather, like a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake . . ."

Now had I shuffled over to her Wikipedia page and then to Amazon I would have seen all of that and probably abandoned the recipe because those aren't the reasons I cook and I have no desire to be a domestic goddess. The only reason I cook is because I am not wealthy and can neither afford to employ a personal chef nor to eat out everyday.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that the reason a lot of women are "postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched" and all at the same time is because were are trying too hard to be "rather, like a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes?" I contentedly (more or less) operate in a kitchen of brisk efficiency thank you very much. Don't get me started on trailing fumes that aren't sprayed from an atomizer.

Back to the cake: The only ingredient I had to acquire were almonds. I briefly wondered if I could substitute almond extract but some quick poking around on the Internet told me I couldn't because the ground almonds act like flour. I bought slivered almonds and decided our fancy blender with it's multiple settings would be sufficient in grinding them the way a food processor would and adding an unspecified amount of sugar was recommended to ease this step.

The recipe said to simmer the clementines to soften them up because they too would be going into the blender: pith (the white stuff under the skin) and peel included. The simmering clementines smelled great. Seriously, I would boil a bunch of citrus just to get that aroma.

Despite having to work in small batches everything ground, pureed, and mixed nicely. Color, consistency, and smell all looked good to go so into the springform pan it went.

I pulled it from the oven still smelling and looking edible. After it cooled I nervously offered a slice to David he took one bite and flinched. I could feel my body tense because despite all my big talk about hating the kitchen I don't like to fail part of being efficient is consistent success. I snatched the plate from him and took a bite: it was bitter. Too bitter even for David who isn't a big fan of sweets.

He asked if I had used the pith and I said:"Yeah! That's what the recipe said to do. I know the pith is normally frowned upon for being inedible but..."then I tipped the cake into the trash.

This is another instance where I don't know what I did wrong. Could the clementines have been languishing for too long in our fruit bowl? After I added the sugar to aid in grinding should I have added more sugar to the batter? I've picked over the comments here and here trying to see if anyone else has had these problems and the closest solution I have found is omitting some of the clementine peels (But how many though?) or adding some vanilla extract.  The people whose cakes came out bitter and didn't pass muster at their tables threw the recipe out.

I've got five clementines glaring at me again and I just might be stubborn enough to try this recipe one more time before throwing in the towel.