blood orange marmalade cake
It's citrus season in Australia and the first blood oranges have just appeared in the shops. I've featured many blood orange cake recipes on the blog but this time I wanted to incorporate some marmalade in the recipe. I used some home made blood orange and vanilla marmalade I had in the fridge and as blood oranges are still pretty expensive I substituted mandarin rind and juice for the blood orange juice and rind in the cake recipe.
I checked on-line to see if any-one else had had the brilliant idea of including marmalade in their cake and found many recipes, including this one from Nigel Slater. At least I knew I was on the right track. I'm pretty sure this cake would work well with any citrus based marmalade and juice such as lime, cumquat or tangelo.
The cake came out of the oven nice and moist with a good orange tinge. I could have left the cake as is but in my head I had an image of the cake topped with glistening slices of orange rind.
I carefully sliced one of the 2 blood oranges I'd purchased and cooked the slices in toffee. This is such a simple way of candying fruit and the end result is so tasty I'm a bit surprised there were any slices left to decorate the cake.
Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. This recipe makes a small loaf or a 17 cm round cake. To make a larger loaf or an 8 inch cake (20 cm) just double all the ingredients. The cooking time shouldn't need to be adjusted.
Blood Orange Marmalade Cake
125g (4 oz) unsalted butter, softened
100g (3½ oz) caster sugar
Finely grated rind of 1 blood orange, a regular orange or a mandarin
50 g (2 tbs) blood orange or regular orange marmalade, rind chopped into small pieces
2 eggs
¾ cup self raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ cup almond meal
¼ cup blood orange juice
Method
Grease, flour and line the base of small loaf tin or a 17 cm round tin with baking papaer. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl and mix together with the almond meal. Set to one side.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, caster sugar, orange rind and the marmalade. Lightly beat the eggs in a small bowl, then gradually mix into butter mixture. If the mixture starts to look curdled, add a spoonful of the flour mixture. Add the remaining flour mixture into the batter alternating with the orange juice to make a soft batter. If the batter looks too thick add a little more juice. Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake the cake in the oven for 45 minutes until the top is lightly golden and cake is cooked when tested with a skewer. If the cake tests a little moist, switch off the oven and leave a further 10 minutes. Leave the cake to cool for about 10 minutes before turning out on a wire rack.
You can serve the cake lightly dusted with icing sugar or glazed with some warmed marmalade. I iced the cake with a simple glacé icing and some candied orange slices.
Blood Orange or Mandarin Glacé Icing
1 tsp butter
½ cup sifted icing sugar
The juice of ½ blood orange,a regular orange or a mandarin
Method
In a small bowl, mix the butter into the sifted icing sugar. Gradually beat in sufficient juice to make a slightly runny icing. Allow the cake to cool completely before icing and decorating with some candied orange slices
Toffeed Blood Orange Slices
1 small blood orange, thinly sliced and seeds removed
2/3 caster sugar
2/3 cup water
Method
In a frying pan combine the sugar and water, place over a low heat stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for 5 - 8 minutes or until the toffee starts to turn golden. Add the blood orange slices and turn frequently until the slices are well coated about 3 - 5 minutes. Remove the slices and place on baking paper. Allow to cool at room temperature before storing in a single layer in an airtight container.
This recipe makes a lovely moist deeply orange flavoured cake. I had my slice with a cup of tea and it was absolutely delish!
See you all again next week,
Jillian
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