blood orange cake

a quick no-bake dessert, easy to assemble, that looks fabulous. do you have other requierments on a weeknight? the hardest part is waiting for it to set, in the fridge, for at least 3 hours to overnight.

8-9 blood oranges
1 3/4 cups orange juice
2 cups whipping cream
1 vanilla pudding mix
2 tb sugar
3 tb powdered sugar
20 ladyfingers or so
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sugar

make a pudding using 1 3/4 cups orange juice instead of milk. i always get the unsweetened ones because i can better control the taste of the finished product. so add 2 tb sugar or don't. let cool.
make a simple syrup by boiling 1/2 cup oranje juice and 1/4 cup sugar. let cool.
peel the oranges making sure to remove the pith at the same time. slice them across the segments to make them look like flowers. line a cake pan with saran wrap and then arrange the orange slices, trying to fit them close together, like a puzzle. line the walls of the pan too.
beat 2 cups of cream until you have soft peaks, then slowly add 3 tb powdered sugar while beating untill stiff. add the pudding to this and mix gently from top to bottom.

put half of the cream on top of the oranges. then layer ladyfingers which you briefly rolled in the syrup, just a second on each side. on top pf those put the rest of the cream, then another ladyfinger layer. bring the ends of the wrap over the cake and refrigerate for as long as you have but no less than 3 hours. it's light and very refreshing. blood oranges are my favorite winter fruit. it's a brief window of opportunity with these, and each season i feel i didn't have enough of them. like it happens with cherries in the spring. i can never have enough cherries and blood oranges.

this is not my invention but i can't assign paternity, because i don't remember it. i think i've seen it done with blood oranges and mascarpone cream on a brazilian blog, and then i've seen a million versions using, er, orange oranges. i would love to come across that brazilian blog again, it really was extraordinary.