Whole Mandarin Gochujang Corn Cake

A tale of failure and cake.

Hey everyone!

Hope you’re all holding it together and keeping warm. We had a blast of cold days last week here in Brooklyn and i’m so happy we appear to be on the other side for a bit.

This week I wanted to bring you a recipe to offset the grey winter vibes you might be feeling. This cake is electric yellow with a whole pound of mandarins and a tingle of spicy depth from gochujang, a fermented pepper paste often used in Korean cuisine as a flavorful base to soups (guk) and stews (jjiage). My favorites are soondabu jjiage and kimchi-guk. The cake also has its fair share of cornmeal, which you already know I love and use often. It helps to create a plush crumb and adds even more of a warm glow to each slice.

This type of cake and I actually have a past together that runs back many years. I first ran into the concept of a “whole orange” cake in Nicole Rucker’s book Dappled though many people in the US found their way to this cake through Claudia Roden who featured a recipe for Orange Almond Cake in her classic, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, which was released in 1968. Claudia’s recipe is followed by another recipe titled “Another Orange Almond Cake” which uses only the zest of an orange and the addition of orange blossom water and matzo meal or breadcrumbs.

Nicole’s version - Spiced Tangerine Semolina Cake, features tiny Kishu tangerines that only require a quick simmer, in contrast to the 2 hour cooking time called for in Claudia’s recipe. Nicole also finishes her cake off with a spiced syrup of cinnamon and anise. The first time I gave Nicole’s recipe a go, I was amazed at the results. The cake was tender, perfumed with citrus and the spiced syrup was a really nice touch. The second time I made the cake it lead to an existential panic involving multiple frantic text threads and apologies.

I had just started a new job as a pastry baker at a recently opened restaurant in San Francisco. By day, the restaurant was a causal breakfast and brunch spot with coffee, pastries, and sourdough. By night, the place transformed into a fine dining joint helmed by a chef who had worked at one of the sister restaurants under the same umbrella of prestige and deep pocketed investors. To say that the pressure for me was high would be an understatement.

At the time, I had worked a few years in some large scale bakeries in the Bay Area. I felt competent in my skills as a baker and I knew above everything else that I could learn and grow quickly in this new environment if given the space and support. I was so eager to impress and connect with the chefs in the kitchen that I would often bring in baked goods from home for staff to eat during family meal. When the days got cooler and the first citrus season rolled around, I knew I had to bring in the spiced tangerine cake that I was so fond of.

Sourcing citrus fruit in California can actually be quite tricky. Not because there’s any scarcity but because of the sheer abundance and variety. We’re talking dozens of different and unique citrus fruits at the peek of the season and that’s just what’s available at your standard conventional grocery store. The farmers markets are practically choked with the newest varietals. Each year farmers get better at cross-breeding and experimenting with which properties they can remove or enhance in each crop. It’s overwhelming - but in a good way.

A very typical scene from Berkeley Bowl - my favorite store on earth

In the midst of this citrus perfumed circus, I mistook the tiny kishu tangerines called for in Nicole’s recipe for a slightly larger variety with thicker skin. I bought just the amount I needed and quickly made it home after work to start baking. I didn’t even think to buy an extra just to taste. I had made this before, so what could go wrong? I followed the recipe exactly as written, including the quick 15 minute simmer to soften the fruit. I pulled the cake from the oven and was met with the same familiar scent. Success! Or so I thought.

Greatest example of “looks can be deceiving”

I quickly decorated and set up my cake for family meal, knowing my shift ended right as the chefs would appear and start eating before their long night of service. I cut a slice to go and said my goodbyes amidst a calm wave of accomplishment over how nice the cake looked on its ceramic platter. Halfway home on the 38 bus, I took a bite of my creation and felt the sudden rush of cold horror at the taste in my mouth. The cake was miles beyond the pleasant bitterness that you might expect or enjoy in a cake made with whole citrus. It was oddly astringent and had a drying effect that felt like you had taken in a mouthful of dampened sawdust.

Something was wrong and about to get even worse. Miles away now I imagined the chefs, who I was in the process of trying to prove myself to, finishing their pre-service meal with a slice of my horrible cake. What kind of baker would they see me as then? I had to do something. After spitting out the bite back into a napkin and shoving it into my coat pocket, I hurriedly shot a text to the bread baker begging him to throw the cake away before it could be eaten. But he wasn’t there, having left shortly after I went home for the day. I fumbled through my contacts and landed on a chef that I was friends with before starting the job. Messaging him on Instagram, I hoped he’d respond and save me from the years of ridicule that lay before me.

When the message was received, a few of the chefs had already started to eat the cake. My heart sunk. How could I have made such a stupid mistake? Not just confusing one citrus for another but more importantly not tasting my ingredients along the way as I’d been taught to do so many times. Luckily, I kept my job and somehow retained and built onto the respect that was growing for me in the kitchen. The cake became a funny story and an opportunity for gentle teasing from then on. I was still allowed to bring in desserts from home, but I had to promise to let someone else handle the whole tangerine cake next time.

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A few notes…

• Bundt cakes can be intimidating. Ensuring that your cake won’t stick to the pan and that it cleanly releases can cause a lot of stress. Not only do the sesame seeds in this recipe provide a toasty flavor and nice crunch, they help the cake slip right out of the pan. Be sure to apply a liberal and even coating of them!

• The mandarins you should use are the tiny seedless variety. At the grocery store, you may find them advertised as “Cuties” which I recently learned are actually three varieties of mandarins that change throughout the year but are all sold under the same moniker. The skin should be thin and easy to peel, with the bottom of the fruit being slightly concave.

• If you don’t have gochujang, you can use a tablespoon of allepo pepper, two teaspoons of harissa, or leave out the spicy element all together.

• The additional orange zest here is really important! When the mandarins have been cooked, they lose their sharpness. The zest helps bring back some acidity to the cake. If you have it, you could add a scant 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid to the batter instead.

• I love the flavor of olive oil and butter so I use them both here. The olive oil creates a super soft cake that doesn’t dry out as easily. The butter adds richness but also structure to the finished cake.

Whole Mandarin Gochujang Corn Cake

makes one 10 inch bundt cake

500g mandarin oranges (see note above)

50-65g unsalted butter, melted and cooled to pasty consistency

3/4 to 1 cup untoasted black sesame seeds

320g all-purpose flour

186g medium grind cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

zest of 1 large orange

38g gochujang

330g white sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

133g olive oil

74g unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

1. Using a fork, gently pierce the bottom of each mandarin. Place into a medium pot and cover with water by about 1 to 2 inches. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and allow the citrus to cook for 30 to 45 minutes. Add additional water to the pot if the level is getting low and flip the mandarins every 15 minutes or so. When finished the mandarins should be intact but very soft and when pierced with a fork, you should feel no resistance. Allow to cool to room temperature. This step can be done the day before baking the cake. Store the cooled and drained mandarins in the fridge overnight in a covered container.

2. With a rack in the upper-middle position, preheat the oven to 350F. Using a pastry brush, apply the softened butter to the inside of a 10 inch bundt pan, being sure to apply butter to the deepest corners and the middle tube. The butter should be the consistency of toothpaste, leaving a visible layer on the pan as you brush. Add the black sesame seeds to the pan and rotate to coat the inside of the bundt before tipping out the remaining seeds. Set the prepared pan aside.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. Use a small knife to remove the green stem from each mandarine and then cut each fruit into halves or quarters so they fit easily into the bowl of a food processor. Process the mandarins until they’re completely smooth. Stop the processor and add the orange zest and gochujang. Pulse the machine until the pepper paste is completely mixed into the fruit without any lumps.

4. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and whisk in the sugar, followed by the eggs one at a time and the vanilla extract. Pour in the olive oil and melted butter and whisk until the mixture is glossy and homogeneous. Add the dry ingredients and use a whisk or a rubber spatula to fold together until no dry streaks remain. The batter should be smooth and lump free.

5. Carefully pour the batter into the prepared pan, rotating the pan as needed to ensure the batter fills every corner. Use an overset spatula to gently smooth the surface of the batter. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 55 minutes. When finished, the cake should be firm to the touch, golden brown around the edges, and the internal temperature should be 200F. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes at room temperature before inverting onto a cooling rack or plate to cool completely.