Orange Cake

After the great success of my lemon cake I thought I will give another go with the orange cake again. Yes, I have been trying to bake orange cake for sometime now. In fact I tried baking the orange cake twice before and it was an absolute failure and pledged that I would never try them again. I followed the same procedure and same recipe twice also exactly. I don’t really know where it went wrong as I did what was exactly shown. The name of the cake was ‘Delicate orange cake’. But when I baked it, it came out so hard that if somebody would get a hit with it, they might see million stars. I baked it after watching a cookery show on TV and was quite sad when it turned out bad for the second time and threw out the whole stuff. But again I think, cooking is all about trial and error. Keep trying and finally you will do it right. And the feeling when you get it right is very soothing.

Few days back again, I saw another orange cake being baked on the tv cookery show. I felt very tempted again. Few days after watching that show I baked the orange cake by mixing few recipes and finally the orange cake hit the goal. This is the first time that it came out good, Gosh. I was very pleased with the outcome. Orange cake is a very good alternative to plain cake with a light zesty smell and orange flavour. The cake is very light and soft and so I think it will be delicious even without the syrup and it will last for few days in the refrigerator. It tastes best at room temperature rather than warm. This cake was quite huge than expected since it gets good volume by whisking the eggs and sugar.

Orange cake
Serves 12- 14

Ingredients
250 gm plain flour
300 gm granulatedSugar
200 gm unsalted butter
2 tbs orange zest
4 large eggs
2 level tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
200 mls freshly squeezed orange juice+ 2 tbs sugar
2 tbsful icing sugar

Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Butter and flour the sides of a 9” cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

2.Melt the butter gently in a saucepan and set aside.

3. Using a hand-held electric beater, whisk together the eggs, grated orange zest and sugar for a few minutes until light and slightly fluffy. Stir in the melted butter and sift in the flour and baking powder and salt. Fold it all together gently.

4. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin, smooth the surface and bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until golden or when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
5. Remove the cake from the tin and place it on a cake stand or separate dish.

6. Prick the cake all over throughout the bottom using a skewer. Stir in the 2 tbs of sugar in the orange juice and Pour it all over the cake while still hot.

7. Let the cake cool down completely. Sift icing sugar on top generously and serve in slices with tea or coffee.

TIPS and notes:
1. While adding flour to cake batter never over mix as this will result in heavy cake and like bread rather than spongy and light cake.
2. Use the correct measures.
3. Use the right oven temperature. Don’t use high temperature to bake cake as outer part will get brown quickly and inside will remain uncooked.
4. Instead of sprinkling the Icing sugar on top, u can also use orange icing to spread on top.
Use freshly squeezed orange juice for pouring on top. Don’t use store bought orange juice as the taste is very different. Don’t Use the blender for juicing orange as it turns out bitter after sometime. Recipe Source : Rachel Allen:Bake.