Orange and Almond Cake

So, I was making candied orange peel. As you do. Because it’s the season of oranges and cinnamon and sweet things to help us through the short days.

..And I had lots of orange syrup left over from the boiling of the peel with sugar, so I wanted to use it to make a lovely moist festive orange cake. The nutty almonds, sweet syrup and zesty zest work together to make this the ultimate tea-time cake.

And another welcome use for this cake is after a Christmas dinner - I don't like Christmas pudding but this one can be rigged up (depending on how fancy your cake tins are) to look just like one and (for me) it tastes so much better!

I used a little fancy cake tin and though it was more difficult to extricate the cake (it required heavy greasing beforehand and careful handling after!) it gave it a fancy finish that I really loved.

Ingredients for the cake

• 200g melted butter
• 150g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 100g plain flour
• 100g ground almonds
• Zest of one orange, juice of half
• 1 tsp baking powder

To finish

• 2 tbsp orange syrup (optional)
• 200g icing sugar
• Some water and juice of 1/2 a large orange
• Candied orange peel to decorate

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a 20cm cake pan.

Melt the butter and set aside to cool briefly. Whip together the sugar and eggs until pale and light, and then whisk in the butter.

Add the flour, almonds, baking powder orange zest and juice and stir gently to combine.

Pour into the prepared (heavily greased!) tin and bake for 45 to 50 minutes.

Once cooked, remove from the tin and onto a wire rack. Poke a few holes in the top (I do it with a chopstick) and pour over the syrup while the cake is still hot. This stage is optional!

Allow to cool.

Make the icing topping by mixing the icing sugar with a little water and enough orange juice to give a smooth thick consistency.

Pour over the top of the cooled cake and scatter over some orange peel.

Allow to set before slicing.