STICKY CITRUS SPONGE CAKE

Each month I await eagerly for my food magazines to arrive. The day they arrive in my mailbox I clear the morning, abandon household chores, and sit down with a big cup of coffee to browse through them. I drool over the recipes wondering what I will choose to recreate, or at least try out. I stick notes on my favourite dishes and plan to cook them in the coming weeks.

Sometimes however I never get around to it. I am full of good intentions but somehow they get buried under all the other magazines and books and it is weeks, or months later when I find that dish that I really wanted to make.

I have decided the only way to make sure I try out the recipes as I intended, is to deal with them quickly. Cook the dish within a few days, and that way if it is good I cut it out and file it, if it disappoints I bin it. This not only cuts down on the piles of magazines but keeps meals interesting and varied.

This month's GOOD FOOD magazine had a delicious looking orange cake on the front cover. I knew immediately I wanted to try this out. All the ingredients were store cupboard basics and there were plenty of oranges in the fruit bowl. So within a couple of days I was ready to go.

It was a simple recipe to do, the longest bit was peeling and chopping the oranges. The rest of the ingredients were all mixed together in one and poured over oranges. 45 minutes later I was pulling it from the oven.

The result was impressive, and most certainly will be laminated and filed, as it delivered a beautiful moist citrus cake perfect with an afternoon cup of coffee or as a dessert with a dollop of creme fraiche.


I love a successful end result in the kitchen.

4 Medium Oranges
6 tbsp golden syrup
200g (7oz) softened butter
200g (7oz) soft brown sugar
200g (7oz) SR Flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g (4oz) ground almonds
4 large eggs

Heat oven to 180C (350f) and grease the base of a 23cm (10") cake tin
Into a large bowl finely grate zest from 2 of the oranges. Remove pith and peel form all 4 oranges and cut into quite thick slices.
Pour golden syrup evenly over base of tin. Lay sliced oranges on top. Chop up remaining slices and put into bowl.
Put all the remaining ingredients into bowl with orange zest and mix well.
Pour over oranges in cake tin and with the back of a spoon make a hollow in middle, this will ensure cake rises evenly. Bake for 40-50mins until cooked through. Leave in tin for 5 minutes before turning out.

I sprinkled over some pomegranit seeds, only because I had one needing to be used up. I also thought it might be nice to sprinkle with pistachio nuts. You can pour over a little golden syrup before serving but I felt it was sweet enough and some creme fraiche cut nicely through the citrus.

On the next page was an onion soup recipe. It was a long time since I had cooked this dish. So I decided I would also make this on the same day.

Tonights supper? A delicious warming bowl of Onion Soup followed by Sticky Citrus Sponge Cake. Went down well. Think I hit a winner in this months magazine.


Roll on next month.