Blood Orange Olive OIl Cake

The citrus in the markets is overwhelming now, no?  I go to Trader Joe's or Meijer/Kroger (midwest regional grocery-store shout out.  Hey!) and I'm just blown away by the cuties; clementines; heirloom naval oranges (YES, PLEASE and THANK YOU).   Our house is a cornucopia of citrus right now.  I just can't get enough.  

...which leads me dessert on Saturday night.  Lars and I were hosting our good friends Danielle & Garrett from East Lansing.  These are my Michigan cooking friends.  We invite them over and then try new recipes--by "we" I mean Danielle and I.  Garrett and Lars eat chips and salsa and play indoor hockey and/or trains with Bjorn.  It all works out, you know?  On the menu for Saturday was Jerusalem Chicken (a la The Cottage Cookbook) and a kale salad.   Both turned out well--but my real triumph for dinner on Saturday was a Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake from the Smitten Kitchen blog.  

The finished product.  Aren't blood oranges beautiful?  

Oh, man.  I felt like such a champion when I inserted the knife into the middle after 55 minutes of hand-ringing baking and it came out clean.  Bonus--it tasted amazing (at least to me!) and blood oranges are beautiful.  

Ingredients I have never cooked with before include: blood oranges & buttermilk (true story!).  

Cooking techniques I have now learned/attempted:  Supreming an orange. 

One thing I regret is not making the compote even though I had all the ingredients!  At the end of the night and after cooking for an hour and a half; the last thing I wanted to do was make another mess in the kitchen.  Cake + vanilla ice cream sounded divine.  Although the compote (especially the part where you mix in the honey) sounded amazing.  Another time.  

I have a bunch of leftover buttermilk in my fridge.  Think I'm going to try homemade buttermilk pancakes at some point this week.  Because I'm a domestic diva.