The accidental orange drizzle cake

In our English class last week I wanted to teach, or revise the imperative tense. What better way to demonstrate than to look at a recipe, and better still have a cake to eat which was the product of the recipe. I ended up making an apple cake, because I wanted fairly straight forward instructions, and not too many of them, but I had been tempted to make a drizzle cake which I’d ‘practiced’ the week before to take away on our little mid-week break.

My mum and her sister each had a recipe for a lemon drizzle cake; the actual recipes were pretty much the same but the toppings were different. My aunty put sugar on the top of the cake and then carefully poured lemon juice over it so there was a sugary topping and the juice had soaked into the cake. My mum dissolved the sugar in the lemon juice and then poured it over, making a nice moist cake with no sugary topping.

I decided to make a lemon drizzle cake to take away with us (the original plan had been a chocolate and beetroot, but then remembered my cousin is allergic to chocolate!) I was halfway through making the cake when I realised I had no lemons… But I did have oranges, which is why it is an accidental orange drizzle! The orange didn’t really have enough flavour, so I added some good quality lemon essence oil and I also used some bottled lemon juice for the topping as the orange wasn’t sharp enough – but when I make it again I will use actual lemons! So here is the recipe:

Cake

8 oz butter
8 oz self-raising flour
8 oz castor sugar
3 large eggs
zest of one orange and the juice of half
two tsp good quality lemon essence oil
poppy seeds if you want

Topping

2 oz castor sugar
juice of half an orange
juice of one lemon

cream butter, sugar and lemon essence until pale and fluffy
add zest then eggs and flour alternately
gently add the orange juice (and poppy seeds if you’ve included them)
put into a greased lined cake or loaf tin
bake at 180ºC, gas mark 4, 350ºF for 40-50 mins, or longer if it isn’t quite ready
make the drizzle by gently heating orange juice, lemon juice and sugar until the sugar is all dissolved – don’t boil
while the cake is still warm, stab it all over with a fork then spoon the juice and sugar mixture evenly over the top
eat when cold – or don’t wait and eat it with cream while it’s warm