Little Seville Orange Cakes

File under Take One Ingredient: Seville Oranges

This recipe is adapted from one from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries for a lemon cake.  Really, you can pretty much replace lemon with Seville oranges in many dishes, so it's not much of an adaptation.  Slater's cake is made in a loaf tin and has sliced lemons boiled in a lemon syrup for the topping, but I felt this was a little bit much, particularly as I wanted by toddler to be able to eat them too.

I made these in those silicone muffin trays which do affect cooking time - if you're making these in a more traditional tin, you may need to vary the cooking time accordingly.

Little Seville Orange Cakes
200g butter
200g demarara sugar
4 eggs
90g plain flour
90g ground almonds
1/2 tsp baking powder
Finely grated zest of one Seville orange

For the topping:
Juice of one Seville orange
2tbsp demarara sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 160°C.
Begin by creaming together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy - being demarara sugar, this takes a little longer than normally.  Beat the eggs and slowly add to the butter and sugar, beating all the time.  The mix may split a little - don't worry too much.
Mix together the flour, almonds and baking powder.  Gently fold this into the butter, sugar and egg mix with a metal spoon.  Stir in the orange zest (it is best to actually grate the zest over the mixing bowl to capture any of that lovely essential oil from the peel).

Spoon the mix into your chosen bun tin (greased if a tin, don't worry if using a silicone tray) and place in the oven.  Depending on the size of your moulds, they should take 10-12 minutes, but check frequently - this is not a big rising mixture, so it doesn't matter if you have to open the oven door a few times during baking.  Check if the cakes are done by pushing a metal skewer all the way through - if it comes out clean, the cakes are done.

Meanwhile, mix together the Seville orange juice and the sugar for the topping - it won't all disolve.

Remove from the oven, prick each cake several times with a cocktail stick and spoon the juice and sugar mix.  Allow to cool - if you have the self control (or burn your mouth like I did!).

These make a lovely pudding if served with some clotted cream...

tags: pudding  

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