Glazed Grapefruit Teacake

One afternoon Piper and her friend Kent came over to play one of their usual afternoon games of Risk. Kent was rather upset because he had just accidentally bought a bag of grapefruit instead a bag of oranges. "I hate grapefruit," he said grumpily. I made him a Tarte Tatin and he felt better.

But the point of this story was that Piper and I wound up with a bag of grapefruit that has been sitting in our fridge for a good long while without much use. I enjoy a half of grapefruit with breakfast on special occasions, but usually breakfast consists of the same cereal combination I've been eating since age five.* Don't mess with a good thing, that's my motto!

So now that it's Spring Break and I've got nothing better to do, I decided to go a little bake crazy. A recipe for a grapefruit cake in Ad Hoc at Home caught my eye (there was a similar one in Smitten Kitchen which I may try the next time I'm overloaded with grapefruit), so trusting in the power and wisdom in the Keller I set about making it.

Though it pains me to speak ill of The Man, this cake didn't do much for me. I don't like things that are too overly sweet, and this cake (a sponge soaked with grapefruit syrup PLUS a grapefruit glaze) was just that. Too much sugar, not enough grapefruit, in my opinion. So in the recipe below I make a few suggestions. I think that if the sugar's cut down considerably you may be left with a perfectly light, lovely, moist teacake with the slightest edge of that trademark grapefruit tangy bitterness. Try it out, or try the one from Smitten and see which one suits you best.

Glazed Grapefruit Teacake (Adapted from Ad Hoc at Home)
*Keller's original measurements are indicated with *

Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar *1 2/3 cups
2 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup olive oil *canola oil (I like the olive oil flavor with the grapefruit)
1 tablespoon grated pink grapefruit zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grapefruit Syrup
1 cup strained freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice (from roughly 2 grapefruit)
1/4 cup sugar *2/3 cup

Grapefruit Icing
1/2 cup powdered sugar *3/4 cup
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut a square of parchment paper to cover the bottom of a bread loaf pan with the ends of the paper overhanging the bread pan. This will help you lift the baked bread out--mine was extremely moist and almost impossible to get out. Spray the pan with nonstick spray.

Sift the flour and baking powder together and stir in the salt. Set aside. Combine the sugar and eggs in a bowl and either with a mixer or by hand beat the mixture for about three minutes until thickened and fluffy. Beat in the milk, oil, grapefruit zest and vanilla. Gently beat in the flour mixture, mixing just to incorporate. Spread the batter in the pan and bake for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan to insure even browning, then bake for a further 30 minutes until a tester inserted into the bread comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack.

Combine grapefruit juice and sugar in a saucepan and heat on stovetop until it begins to boil. Simmer 1 minute, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Set aside.

When cake has been removed from oven, take a skewer and poke holes every 3/4" or so all over the top of the cake--make sure you poke them all the way through! Spoon or brush the syrup over the top of the cake until it has been absorbed. Eyeball this--use just as much syrup as you want. Keller told me to use ALL the syrup and I believed him but my cake wound up coming out basically as partially solidified goo! Let cake cool for 10 minutes, then unmold using the edges of parchment paper to help lift out the cake.

Stir the powdered sugar and grapefruit juice together in a bowl until smooth. Using a spoon, drizzle the icing on a diagonal over the top of the cake so that it drips down the sides. The cake keeps very well for up to 2 days, lightly covered.

Like I said, these are my recommendations. Give them a shot and make this cake according to your tastes. It has great potential!

*I know you're curious, so it's a solid base of Cheerios with a smattering of raisins, topped with a light shower of Grape-Nuts. Doesn't get much better than that.