Skip to main content

Ruby Orange Syrup Cake


If you have been a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I absolutely love lemon cakes. They've featured in quite a few of my posts in some way. I love lime and orange in baking, too, but tend to go back to similar recipes again and again ie lemon. So I'm always quite taken when I see something that speaks to this lesser used citrussy corner of my baking mojo, and in a new way.  


A little while ago, I saw a post that caught my eye due to the use of blood oranges and the method used for making the cake. In an unashamed 'nod' to one of my favourite baking blogs, the cake in this post was inspired by the Caked Crusader's Middle Eastern Blood Orange Cake. CC based her version on a Claudia Roden recipe, and it included simmering the oranges before making a puree out of them. I've heard of that method before, but didn't get adventurous enough to try it on this occasion.  

 
But I have been thinking recently a lot of lemon drizzle cakes, too. Thoughts of voluptuous sponge with that sharp crackling of lemon infused sugar topping had me swooning. I even got as far as looking for a new recipe to try, and ventured into the Primrose Bakery Book to try their lemon drizzle loaf. Sadly, and feeling almost as deflated as my finished cake (which had sunk in the middle) it didn't work for me. I don't know why. I've seen other blogs where it's been a triumph of lemony goodness. So maybe it was me.
 
 
But then I saw these Ruby Oranges in my local supermarket, with their cheery, rosy hue.

Remembering CC's post, and never having tried blood oranges before, I found myself putting a bag in my trolley. They languished in my fridge for a few days though, before I managed to get some time to indulge in some baking. Then, thumbing through some books, including GBBO's Learn to Bake, I found a recipe for a sticky lemon syrup cake that looked really easy. I started pondering though, whether it would work with the oranges. So took the plunge, and with a few other tweaks to the recipe, voila!
 
 
The result is this simple yet gorgeous, light cake, that is moist from the syrup. The cake batter is speckled with orange zest, and the juice from the oranges made the most amazingly coloured ruby syrup. It's not too sweet,and is beautifully fragrant from the oranges. This cake got the thumbs up from Mike, who is sometimes so caked out these days after my experimenting that his enthusiasm is difficult to muster. 

So that means it's very good.
 
Ruby Orange Syrup Cake
 
Ingredients
 
200g softened unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
2 ruby oranges (washed to remove the wax)
250g self-raising flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
100ml milk at room temperature
 
For the syrup
100g caster sugar
juice from the two oranges
 
Preheat the oven to 160 Fan / 180 conventional / 350F / Gas 4. Lightly grease an 8 inch (20.5cm) loose based cake tin (don't use a sandwich pan - you need something a little deeper at about 4 inches). Cut out a circle from some baking parchment that is about 13 inches (32cm) in diameter. Push it into the cake tin to line it. You'll need to make little pleats in the side every so often to ensure it fits - just try and do this as neatly as you can. I think it's important that you use one sheet of paper, so that when you pour the syrup in later, it won't leak out of the bottom.
 
Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Cream them together for a few minutes so that the mix is pale and fluffy and all the sugar has dissolved. Finely grate the zest from the two oranges carefully (so you don't get the white pith), and add this to the butter and sugar. Blend a moment just to mix in.
 
Beat the eggs lightly in a small jug, and then, bit by bit, add them to the bowl mixing well after each addition to incorporate. Sift the flour and salt into the bowl, add the milk, and mix in until just incorporated and smooth. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and level the top. 
 
 
Bake in the centre of the oven for about 50 minutes, until it is risen and golden and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove and place the tin on a wire rack.
 
 
Juice the two oranges, then make up the syrup by stirring the caster sugar into the orange juice until it has just started to dissolve. Using your skewer, and while the cake is still warm, carefully prick the cake all over all the way through to the base. Pour all the syrup over the cake. Leave to cool completely.


Once cooled, kept in an airtight container it should keep for 4 days or so. That's if it lasts that long.


There is more than a hint of sunshine in this cake, so with Spring nearly here and Easter just around the corner, I think it's the perfect little bit of sunshine with your morning cuppa.

Enjoy,

Susie

Comments

  1. Heavenly! Moist, sweet and fragrant with orange... Love how you can see all those gorgeous speckles of orange in the batter before it's cooked too! Bookmarking this!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Katharine - I love the way the zest runs through the batter , too. Although the picture doesn't show it very well, the ruby syrup also tinges the cake slightly where it runs through, too. I thought it looked ever so lovely! :)

      Delete
  2. An orange drizzle can easily be as delicious as a lemon drizzle. Yours looks so juicy and tempting. I also tend to stick with lemon flavours despite also liking orange and lime. Sometimes I find oranges can be a bit unpredictable flavourwise, a bit dry or overly sharp. However when they're good they're soooo good! Love the colour of the juice in that second last picture.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jo - I thought the colour was really spectacular. I know what you mean about oranges - they can definitely be a bit hit and miss! :)

      Delete
  3. I think this might be the only bit of sunshine we will be getting with our cuppa - no sign of the real thing over here :-( This cake looks delicious and beautifully moist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Angeka - we're a few days further on now and you might be right. Lots of horrible, cold grey weather in Cardiff. :(

      Delete
  4. wow - you're blood oranges are a much better colour than mine. Yours are full on red, mine were a rather pathetic pink!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't know what to expect. They didn't look it from the outside - just a gentle glow on one side. It was when I cut them open their full glory was revealed. :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Your comments are very much appreciated.

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Indulgent Chocolate and Walnut Brownies for the Weekly Bake Off

It's been a great couple of weeks in the Bake Off , as Amy has chosen some fantastic chocolate recipes from Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes . Although I made last week's American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake, I didn't enter it. Not because it was a disaster (it was incredibly delicious though very rich - Josh has been able to eek it out all week as he only needs a little piece to get his daily chocolate fix!), but I simply ran out of time. So this week, I decided to get my skates on and make the bake early. Particularly as it's brownies. Yes. Brownies. Those dark, fudgey, chocolatey little bites of heaven. But for me, this week was an experiment. You see, I already have a fantastic brownie recipe . It's been made countless times and been played around with to give an endless variety of treats. (Have I ever mentioned Maya Gold in brownies? Yes? Well I'll have to post about them someday soon because they are amazing - like some sort of out of body exp

Not Viennese, but Swiss Cakes for the Weekly Bake Off

One of my strongest childhood memories is the ritual of our family's Sunday Tea, which always took a certain form. My nan would put the kettle on at just before 4pm, and a pot of steaming hot tea would soon be brewed. There were sandwiches, and always, always some form of cake. Quite often, if nan and mum had had a busy weekend, it would be provided by Mr Kipling. My brother and I looked forward to this with some enthusiasm, as there were quite often French Fancies and Vienniese Whirls, which were our hands-down favourites. We could leave the Battenburg Slices, and the jam tarts were often a bit too dry  for us (definitely not as good as homemade). But the soft sweet inside of an iced French Fancy (my favourite being the lemon yellow ones), and the moistness of the Viennese Whirls were something to savour. Of course, you can still buy these. But they just don't seem to taste the same somehow. So when Amy announced this week's Bake Off challenge as the Apricot Swiss

Limoncello Cake

I really love this cake. I mean really love it. So much so, it's my new best friend. It's like sunshine on a plate. The citrussy aroma tempts you while the sultry lemony pucker hits you full in the mouth. And who can resist anything with 'Limoncello' in the title? The mere mention of the word transports you to to the Sicilian sun. It's one more reason I have to thank Random Recipes for getting me to delve into my cookbooks. This month's challenge had a bit of a twist. Dom, of Belleau Kitchen (who runs the challenge) created a Randometer thingummy-bob to test us. You had to enter how many cookbooks you owned, and then it would generate a random number. You counted along your shelf to that book, and then entered the number of pages, to generate another number and so find your Random Recipe. The gods must have been looking favourably on me this month, as I ended up with this gorgeous lemon cake, from Peggy Porschen's 'Boutique Baking