Middle Eastern Orange Cake

This wonderful cake, a recipe from Diana Henry's Crazy Water Pickled Lemons, was another part of the challenge set up by my friend exoticfresh on the taste forum. I've been meaning to make this for a long time, in fact ever since I got the book, so I was very pleased to be given this little push to stop procrastinating and finally give it a go.

I decided from the start that I wouldn't make the Marmalade and Orange Flower Cream to serve on the side. We're not big cake eaters so that means I usually end up cutting a cake like this into portions and freezing it ... therefore most of the cream would spoil before we got round to eating it. I've reproduced the complete recipe here though in case you should want to make it.

Instead of boiling the orange for an hour as stipulated in the recipe you can cook it in the microwave, a clever tip from my old pal Cakes, and thereby speed up the whole process. Apparently you prick the skin of the orange and microwave it, just as you would a potato, checking for doneness and turning it over, etc. and takes just a few minutes. I don't have a microwave and so I boiled the orange in readiness as per the recipe the day before.

Well this cake is a doddle to make, the most taxing part is lining the tin, lol. If you don't have caster sugar in the house, or it's not to be found in your neck of the woods as is my case, then just tip ordinary granulated sugar into the food processor and blitz for a moment or two ... et voilà caster sugar, and cheaper too. I followed the recipe exactly, the only thing I did differently was reducing the sugar to 200g as a quarter of a kilo sounded like an awful lot to me.

Wow what a cake! Moist and light, and so orangey ... absolutely fabulous. I'm not sure there will be any slices being put in the freezer, we may just devour it all tonight, lol.

Middle Eastern Orange Cake with Marmalade and Orange Flower Cream


1 Orange
3 Eggs
250g (9oz) Caster Sugar
55g (2oz) Plain Flour, Sifted
5ml (1tsp) Baking Powder
200g (7oz) freshly ground Almonds
Icing sugar for dusting

for the cream:
55g (2oz) Fine-shred Orange Marmalade
125g (4 ½ oz) Mascarpone Cheese
30ml (2 Tbs) Greek Yoghurt
Icing Sugar to taste
5ml (1 tsp) Orange Flower Water

Put the orange in a saucepan, cover with water and simmer for an hour. Cut the orange in half, remove the pips, and purée the rest of the fruit in a food processor.

Grease a 20cm (8in) spring-form tin and line with greaseproof paper. Preheat oven to 180˚C (350˚F) Gas Mark 4. Beat the eggs and sugar together until they’re pale and thick. Fold in the flour, baking powder, almonds and orange purée. Pour into the tin and bake in oven for about an hour, or until skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Turn the cake out to cool

To make the cream, melt the marmalade in a small pan. Let it cool slightly, but don’t let it set, then mix it with the mascarpone and yoghurt. Add icing sugar to taste and the orange flower water.

Sift icing sugar over the cake and serve with the marmalade cream.