blood orange poppyseed cake / DELICIOUS BITES

8 Oct 2018

It's no secret that I just love blood oranges. Just look through the archives and you'll find blood orange cakes, tarts, curd and squares. A few weeks ago blood oranges were on special at the fruit shop so I bought a few.

While looking through my copy of Sweet, I spied the Lemon and Poppyseed cake, the National Trust version and decided to make it using blood oranges instead of lemons. The lemon poppyseed cake was baked in a loaf tin but I decided I wanted to make my cake in a bundt tin.

The cake uses both melted butter and double cream, so its the perfect cake to make when you've forgotten to leave your butter out to soften.

The cake was very quick to put together and baked in a bundt tin it was out of the oven in about 45 minutes.

Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Ingredients

75g unsalted butter, cubed, plus extra for greasing

3 large eggs

225g caster sugar

120ml double cream

10g poppy seeds

4 tsp finely grated orange zest

170g plain flour

1¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

Glaze

100g icing sugar, sifted

1½ tbs orange juice

Grease and flour a small bundt tin. Store in the fridge while you make the cake. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Place the eggs and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk on a medium-high speed for about 2 minutes, until pale and frothy. Add the cream and continue to whisk for about 2 minutes, until the mixture has combined, thickened a little and turned pale.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat, add the poppy seeds and orange zest and set aside. (I put mine in the fridge).

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl, then use a rubber spatula to fold this into the egg mixture before folding through the butter, poppy seeds and zest.

Spoon the mixture into the cake tin so that it rises three-quarters of the way up the sides. Place the tin on a baking tray and cook for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before unmoulding.

Make the glaze by whisking the icing sugar with the orange juice in a bowl. Pour this over the top of the still warm cake, spreading it over the top so that it sinks in and creates a nice glaze. Leave to come to room temperature before serving. The cake will keep for 3 days in an airtight container, if it lasts that long.

I'll definitely be making this one again, probably the lemon version next time. If I make the lemon cake in a bundt tin, I'll ditch the glaze and use a citrus syrup instead. Trying to get the glaze to run down the sides of the bundt cake was just a bit too fiddly.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

blood orange poppyseed cakes

29 Sept 2014

Hi Every-one,

I hope you all had nice weekends. I had a quiet weekend at home recovering from a busy week at work. I did quite a bit of cooking, catching up on items for the blog as I'm going to be out of Sydney for the next couple of weekends. When I return the flat is being repainted so I don't know how easy it will be to get into the kitchen.

Here's the last blood orange recipe for a while. I still have one more item to make but I'm sure you're ready for something else so next week expect something savoury from my kitchen.

I decided to make some little blood orange poppyseed cakes. Initially I was going to make them in muffin tins but I didn't want to use liners and I couldn't be bothered greasing and lining the tins so I decided to use my little loaf tins instead.

I whipped these up from an old recipe I photographed a few years back. I didn't type up the recipes back then or post them, so the recipe is hand written in an old notebook. It's good to see my styling has improved a bit since then!

The recipe made 4 little loaves and I probably could have squeezed all the batter into the tins but I decided to make a little teeny tiny cake specially for the cook.

The syrup didn't really go far enough so I might make double the quantity next time.

Here's the recipe for you which makes one 16 cm cake, a small bundt or loaf cake or 4 mini loaf or bundt cakes. If you double the mixture it will make an 8 inch cake.

Blood Orange Poppy Seed Cakes
1¼ cups plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
1 tbl poppy seeds
110g (4 oz) unsalted butter, softened
100g (3½ oz) caster sugar
Finely grated rind of 1 blood orange
2 eggs
¼ cup blood orange juice

Method
Grease and flour 4 small loaf or bundt tins. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl. Stir though the poppy seeds and set to one side. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, orange rind and caster sugar. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs 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 to 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 tins and bake the cakes in the 180°C/350°F oven for 25-30 minutes or until the tops are lightly golden and cakes are cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave the cakes to cool for about 10 minutes before turning out on a wire rack. Pour over the blood orange syrup.

Blood Orange Syrup
1 small blood orange
⅓ cup caster sugar
⅓ cup water

Method
Peel the orange and finely shred the peel. Juice the blood orange and set the juice to one side. In a small pan bring some water to the boil, and then cook the peel for 1 minute. Drain the peel and rinse.

Return the orange rind to the pan with the juice, the sugar and the additional water. Bring the mixture to the boil then simmer until the syrup is reduced by half. If the syrup thickens up a bit you can warm it up again and if you have any left over blood orange juice you can add a tablespoon at this point to freshen up the flavour of the syrup. Pour the syrup over the cooled cake decorating the tops of the cakes with the candied peel.

Serve with a nice cup of tea and enjoy.

Do you remember a few weeks ago I was wondering whether I should rename the blog, delicious bites? I'd like to go ahead and with that I'll need a new logo. I've made some enquiries and the price to redesign the blog and provide a logo is way out of my budget.

For the first time in 10 years I don't have a regular photography gig so the coffers are bare. I'm planning to use a pre-made template but would like to jazz it up with a new logo. In the past my clever readers have helped me out with my shopshoot logo (many thanks Jess) and I was wondering if there was any-one out there who could help me?

I've an idea of what I want, I just need someone clever who can realise my ideas. If you think you could help, please email me (info at jillianleiboff.com) or leave your contact details in the comments section.

Bye for now,

Jillian

SLIDER