Sunny cake for cloudy days
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I’ll say it once, I’ll complain about it so many times you’ll get frustrated with me, I am a summer girly. I despise being cold, I don’t like the rain, and potentially controversially, I’m not a big fan of a slow cook. Give me a coffee on the back porch with the sun on my face, a bbq sausage, a beach with a packed chilly bin, and a hot endless night, please. Despite this, I refuse to shop out of season.
Fresh tomato? Haven’t seen her since April. Cucumbers, corn, capsicum, you must be arti-joking me (that's an artichoke joke). Luckily, for a little bit of brightness in the depths of winter, you can always rely on citrus.
For a long lunch a couple of weeks ago, and with oranges at $2.99 a kilo, I decided I wanted to make an orange cake for dessert. I’m an avid saver of things on Instagram (do you follow me on Instagram?) since most of the people I follow are on the other side of the world and therefore, the complete opposite season. Luckily, I’d saved numerous orange cakes when the UK where in the depths of its last winter.
The criteria for this cake were that it needed to be VERY simple, could be made the day before (bonus if it was even better the next day), and that it didn’t use ground almonds. Cause I don’t know about you, but I don’t got ‘full cake of ground almond money’.
Blitzed orange cake with yoghurt, sour cream whip and candied fennel oranges.
This cake has five ingredients, is simple to put together, and is a literal ray of sunshine. You could sprinkle some icing sugar over the top and it’d be delicious with a cuppa. Or, I’ve added two level-ups. Add either one, yum. But altogether, it looks and tastes pretty fancy guys.
Blitzed orange cake.
2 oranges (approximately 300g in total)
300g caster sugar
3 eggs
250ml extra virgin olive oil or a neutral vegetable oil
250g self-raising flour
Preheat oven to 180 degrees and grease and line a 25cm cake tin.
Chop the oranges into quarters, remove any seeds and throw into a food processor (whole thing, skin and all). Blitz until it’s a puree.
Weigh the sugar and crack three eggs into a medium-sized bowl. Whisk until pale, thick and fluffy - 3ish minutes. Add in the olive oil and oranges, whisking to combine.
Sift the flour into the bowl, mix gently to combine and then pour into your lined cake tin. Place in the pre-heated oven for 30-40 minutes, or until set in the middle. Cool in the tin for a few minutes then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
To serve, dust with icing sugar, slice and drink with a cuppa.
Level-up 1: Yoghurt, sour cream whip.
Just the right side of creamy, tangy, and slightly more robust than cream, to match the richness of the cake.
125g sour cream
125g thick Greek yoghurt
1 Tbsp icing sugar
Combine sour cream, yoghurt and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk together till smooth. It should be a little tart but add more icing sugar if you’d like.
Level-up 2: Candied fennel oranges in syrup.
Orange and fennel work so well together but are normally done in a savoury way (hello pork belly with orange and fennel slaw). Here the fennel seeds add their earthy, licorice flavour to give the cake another subtle but familiar dimension.
2 small oranges, sliced as thin as you can
130g sugar
160ml water
1 tsp fennel seeds, bashed up a bit
Put the orange slices in a saucepan, and add enough water to cover them well. Place on medium-high heat and bring to a simmer for ten minutes, then drain well.
Put the oranges back in the saucepan and add the sugar and 160ml of water and the fennel seeds. Bring back to a simmer and cook the oranges for about ten minutes, or until they are tender and translucent. Remove from heat and cool.
To serve, slice the cake into hefty portions. Place each slice onto a plate with a big spoon of the whip, a couple of candied orange slices, and a puddle of their syrup.
Note: Having people over? Make the cake the day before, it only gets better. The whip is so simple you could make it a minute before serving or 48 hours prior. The candied oranges will last at least a week. In fact, I have some in my fridge made a fortnight ago. They’ve been a delightful addition to my porridge this week.
Sides:
Carrying on the citrus theme, I was gifted this lemon juicer from Frances Nation and I love it.
Make preserved lemons, lots of them, it’s amazing how often they come in handy.
I’ve been loving a singular martini lately, perhaps contradictorily, drunk from a fancy coup glass in my slippers and track pants. The most potent of the numerous variations is a 50:50 Lillet Blanc:Gin, served very cold with waif of lemon.
That’s it, that’s all. See you next time.
Rosie