Orange Cake by Stephanie Alexander

Ever practical, The Cook’s Companion has always been a reliable source of last-minute solutions, both sweet and savoury. In this instance, I needed a simple cake to whip up to form a part of a more elaborate affair for a baby shower cake. This cake fitted the brief perfectly, used only what I had to hand and the result was utterly delicious as well as very stable (enough to hold both a buttercream and fondant icing).

I will post the baby shower cake later in the week but for now, consider this to be step one.

Ingredients:

Cake

• 250g softened butter
• 1 ½ cups caster sugar
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 100ml orange juice
• Zest of 1 orange (my addition)
• 250g self-raising flour

Icing

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tbs Grand Marnier
• 1 tbs orange juice
• 40g melted butter

Preheat your oven to 180°c, then grease and line a 22cm springform tin.

Blend the butter, sugar, eggs, zest and orange juice in a food processor for 1 minute. Or beat on high with hand-held beaters for 1 minute.

Add flour and process again until smooth and creamy, about another minute using either method.

Spoon into tin and bake for 50 min. Check at 40 min.

Cool in pan 5 min then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely before icing.

To make the icing Stephanie Alexander prescribes for this cake, simply place all icing ingredients in a bowl. Place the bowl on a saucepan of simmering water and stir ingredients together to combine well.

The icing will be very runny, pour over the cooled cake and allow to run down the sides.