Orange Cake for a birthday Afternoon tea

 Whole Orange Cake

I love a flavoursome orange cake in Summer and when I saw this recipe I decided to make it for myself on my birthday. Such a treat. It is so easy, as there is no zesting, juicing or peeling involved, the washed orange is just mulched up in the food processor and if you have an orange in your fruit basket, and enjoy baking there is a very strong chance that you will also have all of the other ingredients on hand. I am finding that using plain flour and baking powder gives better results than using S.R. flour.

As you can tell by the rich yellow colour, it is full of orange flavour and the taste of summer. I also had some beautiful organic eggs that a friend gave me which were laid by her chickens. Lemon icing provides a wonderful tart contrast to the sweetness of this cake.

I am calling my cake Orange Sunshine.

Find the original recipe here:

INGREDIENTS:

1 whole orange (organic if possible)
3 eggs
180 g melted butter (6.3 oz)
1 cup white sugar (or you can substitute with 3/4 cup of dextrose if you are avoiding sugar)
1 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour or (1 1/2 cups Plain Flour sifted with 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder)

Let's Cook:

• Preheat your oven to 180 C/350 F.
• Grease a 20 cm round spring form cake tin or a small loaf or bar tin.
• Wash your orange carefully if bought from a supermarket, however if it is organic or from your backyard tree this is not as important.
• Cut the orange into quarters, and place the pieces into your food processor. Pulse until the pieces are completely broken down. You may need to use a spatula to wipe down the side of the bowl and the lid a couple of times during this process.
• Add the rest of the ingredients and process again until all the ingredients are combined together, about 50 seconds.
• Scrape the batter with the spatula into the cake tin and cook for around 40 minutes. When I used the loaf tin it took about 50 minutes to completely cook.
• This cake also bakes very well in a loaf tin.

Your cake will be moist and delicious with a wonderful orange flavour. 

Whenever I combine Oranges and Lemons together it reminds me of the singing game we used to play as kids, where we would all hold hands and form an arch and sing the song Oranges and Lemons until one person was left standing and met an unfortunate end. A bit gruesome but as kids it was just great fun, and of course we didn't think about the history or the meaning of the words. As we didn't with the also gruesome fairy tales.  It was based on the traditional English nursery rhyme and singing game which referred to the bells of several churches, all close to or within the City of London. How appropriate that I am also writing this on a Sunday, speaking of church bells ringing that is.

Oranges and lemons 

Say the bells of St Clement's

You owe me five farthings

Say the bells of St. Martin's

Last verse:

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead.

I'm sure that back then we didn't sing all of the verses but we always enjoyed singing the last verse where somebody dropped to the ground. They were innocent days back then. We took great delight in catching the last person in our arch and they were out of the game.

Do you remember playing this game as children and do children still play it?

Thanks for dropping by.

Warm wishes

Pauline x