Appelsinkake

The story

The Norwegian recipe site Matoppskrift calls the orange the sun of Easter and reports that Norway eats more than 8 kilograms of oranges per person a year, about 40,000 tonnes in all, and that the months from Christmas to Easter bring about half of the year's sales. Oranges reached Norway a little over a century ago as an expensive treat and became common in shops only in the 1950s and 1960s. Late Spanish varieties, often the sweetest of the year, arrived around Easter, which helped tie the fruit to the holiday and to the ski trips and cabin snacks that go with it. The Scandinavian baking site Skandibaking puts the Easter total at more than 20 million oranges and notes that many Norwegians also bake an orange cake. The usual form is a plain butter cake baked in a loaf or ring pan, flavored with grated zest and fresh juice and covered with a thin orange glaze, like the trip cake from the Norwegian site Melk.no that Matoppskrift republishes for Easter under the line that Norwegians think of sun and orange when they think of Easter. Bake it a day ahead; the crumb settles overnight and slices more cleanly.