orange cake - a summer delight :)

Summer is in full swing now (at least as much as it can in Britain) so it's the perfect time to sit outside with a good tea/coffee and a slice of cake. Today I made an orange cake based on a victoria sponge, and it looks delicious :)

As with any victoria sandwich, the basic recipe is along 4/2 or 6/3 or even 8/4 (the first number representing ounces of the dry ingredients, the latter being the number of eggs.) For my cake I used a 6/3. [if you don't know what an ounce is in metric, it's more or less 25g, but you should have Oz on your scales anyway]

So for my recipe I used

6Oz Castor Sugar

6Oz Butter/soft spread (softened)

6Oz Self raising flour

1 large orange, zested and juiced

3 Eggs

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Lightly grease a deep sandwich tin (or two shallow ones) and line the bottom with baking parchment

Start off by zesting the orange onto a plate and reserving for later, and juice the orange into a sepreate bowl/ramekin.

Grab a bowl and a spoon, and cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy, then add the three eggs. mix together until all incorporated.

sift in the flour and baking powder, mix together thoroughly. Add in 1/3 of the orange zest and a couple of tablespoons of orange juice as well (be careful not to make the mix too wet, if it is add in a touch more flour)

bake at around 190c for c25 minutes - the cake should be golden brown, and spring back when pressed. leave to cool slightly in the tin, then run a palette or thin knife around the edge to free the cake, and turn out onto a rack to cool.

once cooled, slice in half (or not if you've made 2 small ones).

get a couple of Oz of butter, possibly more, and sift in icing sugar until you have a nice fluffy buttercream. add another 1/3 of the zest and a teaspoon or two of the orange juice, and spread over the bottom half of the cake, then put the top back on.

sift icing sugar into a bowl, about 100g or something (i don't know, I do these things by eye, doesn't matter if you have too much of this icing, it's delicious, and a great reward after making the cake) add the orange juice a teaspoon at a time and blend until you get a really nice thick icing, add most of the rest of the zest to the icing, and ice the top. sprinkle with the last of the zest as decoration, and there you have it. cake :)