Professor Butter Beard’s Glow of Fra Angelico
I know I am not alone when I admit that it has been a challenge this season to sustain an internal glow. But it is still there. I see it when I arrive home and my dog’s smiling face is lit as he watches for me from the front window. It is there when the bedroom window warms to pink and red and finally gold as the sun rises in the morning. You can feel it as you peak into the oven and see a loaf of sourdough rising in the moist heat. And it is there every time I see a painting by Fra Angelico.
Fra Angelico was born Guido di Pietro near the end of the 14th century in the Tuscan area of Mugello near Florence. At the age of twenty, he became a monk, an Observant Dominican, and switched his name to Fra (frater or brother) Giovanni. We know the artist as Fra Angelico, due to his ability to “paint like an angel.” According to Paul Richard, Fra Angelico was a mendicant after taking his vows of poverty. He had no possessions or property. He lived and meditated in a private cell, ate in the monastery refectory and the money he earned painting was turned over to his order. And oh, could that monk paint!
His images were quiet meditations on beauty as the divine. Trained initially as a manuscript illuminator, Fra Angelico would paint deep spaces with simple stories to be seen only by his monk brothers as they meditated and prayed. He would begin by sanding a wooden panel smooth, coating it with a gypsum paste and then painting with egg-based tempera in shades of warm pinks, blues and reds. He would then cover large areas of the surface with thin gold leaf which he would stamp and tap with small metal punches to create intricate designs within the gilded halos and wings. As the monk’s candles flickered during private meditation, the images would dance and twinkle with a golden glow.
The blood oranges in my upside-down cake remind me of the halos Fra Angelico created for his saints and angels. The oranges bake and intensity their flavor in the caramel syrup and then glisten like gilded ornaments over the warm spice cake. The glow is there. We just need to encourage it and then share it with each other.
Blood Orange Upside-Down Cake
One 9-inch cake
Ingredients:
8 ounces plus 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 tsp lemon or lime juice (I prefer lemon)
2 or 3 medium-sized blood oranges
¾ cup finely ground cornmeal
¼ cup hazelnut or almond flour
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
½ tsp table salt
1 cup white sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla paste
1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the middle position.
2) Lightly toast the cornmeal in a non-stick sauté pan until starting to brown and smells like popcorn. Pour the toasted cornmeal into a medium bowl to cool.
3) Lightly spray a 9” cake tin with cooking spray and line with a 9” circle of parchment paper.
4) In a sauté pan, melt the 3 Tbsp of butter and stir in the brown sugar and juice and stir until sugar melts and the mix is smooth. Pour the butter mix into the cake pan.
5) Add the nut flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, five-spice and salt to the cornmeal and whisk to combine.
6) Zest one of the blood oranges and whisk the zest into the dry mix. Cut the skin and pith from the 2-3 oranges and slice them into ¼” wheels. Arrange the wheels in a single layer on top of the butter mixture in the cake pan. Fill the bottom of the pan, but don’t overlap.
7) Cream the 8 ounces of unsalted butter with the white sugar (about 3-4 minutes in a standing mixer) and add the eggs one at a time. Add the buttermilk and vanilla paste.
8) On low, slowly add the dry mix and beat until smooth.
9) Lightly pour the batter over the orange wheels, slowly, so you don’t move the wheels.
10) Bake for 45-50 minutes, until an inserted wooden skewer comes out clean.
11) Cool the cake ten minutes on a rack and then invert onto your serving plate. Gently remove the parchment paper.
12) Serve with whipped cream or homemade vanilla ice cream.
