Before I experienced what school was like in Australia, I had a rough idea how the school holidays were. I was not raised here so my stint with this system is as old as the time my boys have spent in school. Probably less than 6 months. But I would generally guess the school holidays going by the reduced traffic on the roads and the queues at the zoo and the museum. I would make a mental note of complying with these practices when the time came aka. queue up with my kids at various educational and historic locations around the city.
So far I’ve encountered 2 holiday breaks and but I have done none of that. Honestly. it never occurs to me (please don’t judge me) except on two occasions…when I see or hear someone taking their kids to these places and when I remember their school homework. Which is about writing down all the things they did during the holidays. But hey, I have a justification…okay, excuse! Getting a 5 year old to write…and write anything that makes sense is quite a thing.
‘Hold you pencil correctly…
…finger space please..noooo..between the words not letters..
Gosh..that was meant to be a full stop not a flower…don’t chew the pencil…
‘the red car flu to the moon???!!!’
Oh hello..where’s the paper….are you sitting on it?
Sigh! How do you expect them to spell museum then? Well, they can spell farm so farm is where I took them. This time it was the orange farms. We all love the outdoors so this was our perfect holiday outing.
The sunshine was abundant, the trees drooping with the weight of their ripe bounty and our buckets were full in no time. We gave away quite a bit to friends but they just don’t seem to get over. I utilized the zest of three oranges to make this cake. It has mild orange flavour, predominantly tasting of almonds. I had rhubarb at home which can be seen at our markets pretty much round the year. The tart rhubarb was a great addition to the dense almond cake and the sreusel gave the cake another level of texture. The cake recipe is easy where you mix everything together in a large bowl. Then you layer the streusel, rhubarb and the flaked almonds on top.
Orange Almond cake with Rhubarb Streusel (concept slightly adapted from here)
Serves 8-10
350 g young rhubarb stalks
240 g (1 1/2 cups) icing sugar
50 g (1/2 cup) plain flour
finely grated zest of two oranges
185 g unsalted butter, melted
6 egg whites
1 1/2 tablespoons demerara sugar
For the sreusel
For topping, combine sugar and flour in a bowl, then rub in butter until mixture forms clumps. Rub through the orange zest until evenly combined.
Trim leaves and ends from rhubarb and discard, then cut into 2 cm lengths.
Preheat oven to 190°C. Grease a 20 cm round cake pan and line the base with baking paper. Place sugar, flour, orange zest and almond meal in a large bowl, then stir in butter and egg whites until just combined. Spoon into tin, scatter with half the crumb topping, then rhubarb, then remaining topping. Sprinkle with sliced almonds and demerara sugar and bake for 50 minutes or until firm. Cool in tin for 10 minutes.
Best served warm or at room temperature with ice cream on the side.
Love the combo orange-almond… as well as how moist this cake is. I am glad to know that you and your family had a great holiday hand-picking oranges and enjoying nature. The photos are simply gorgeous — as always!
This cake is gorgeous. Love the almonds in there too! And it’s so refreshing to see an orange-rhubarb cake instead of lemon-rhubarb!!
Looks delicious!
I don’t miss those elementary-middle school homework assignments and projects at all. They were as much homework for the parents as they were for the children. This is such a lovely cake. I have never had orange and rhubarb together, but it sounds amazing.
I do love a dense cake, and almond to boot. Plus the gorgeous fruit toppings round out the experience, looks really great. Definitely try to find time and get the kids out to stuff, I have nice memories of such outings.
Personally, I love the farm & museum equally when I was a child; the zoo was never on my list since I saw no reasons to cage all those animals. I love that the farm resulted to this delicious looking cake 🙂 You are so talented, Sonali. 🙂
Any kind of fruit picking is an excellent activity with and for kids. I used to take mine when they were young but alas, these days, they’re too grown up for fruit and farms. Of course, they’ll gobble down cake with no problem! This is a beautoful cake to gobble down no less!
Glad your boys enjoyed their mini excursions! That’s the fun part of being out of school.
Cake looks and sounds delicious!
A trip to the orange farm sounds like way more fun than the zoo or museum, especially when you get something like this as a consequence! What a great bake. I love a good orange cake and the almonds and streusel all sound amazing here. You always add a little twist and the rhubarb is a great surprise.
What a lovely looking cake! I love rhubarb, unfortunately is off season here, but I suppose this cake tastes just as good with a different fruit.
Taking this to the next logical step, I went to my husband and said, “I can spell diamonds!”
Sadly, he didn’t care. 🙂
He would love this orange almond cake as much as I would though.
what a gorgeous looking cake!! love the combination of orange and rhubarb <3
Haha..I totally am with you on this one.
The short trips are always fun and memorable. I thoroughly enjoy your connection, makes total sense.
Love nutty fruity cakes, that’s what you’ve done, amazed me again with flavors.
You go girl.