Sticky Orange Marmalade Cake

One of my favourite things about Red Nose Day (and there are many) is getting hold of the year’s baking book. It’s always filled with interesting takes on simple recipes with the aim of producing things for bake sales. This time Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood provided the celeb chef faces and I had a go at one of Mary’s Bakes.

Method

I made this sponge as per the instructions (i.e. not using the all in one), creaming sugar and butter first then adding the eggs, flour and other ingredients. After making the normal sponge mixture some chunky marmalade is added. After baking some more marmalade is heated and brushed over the top of the cake. Once everything is cooled the recipe says to drizzle over runny icing. However, I didn’t get to that part for reasons explained below.

Results

Not so good. This new oven of mine is still a bit of a mystery. Basically, it was far too hot and therefore the cake had all around it a quite thick crust of burnt. Inside was totally fine and really yummy but the outside spolit it all. So I salvaged it best I could by cutting off the burnt bits and didn’t share it with the world.

Score: 3/10 (A cooler oven next time I think…)

Soundtrack: Red Nose Day festivities on the TV!

Orange Buns with Chocolate Topping

For my second attempt I haven’t changed much. I am sticking to the simple sponge recipe (as before) and trying to get the buns better. This time, because I am making them to celebrate the decorations going up in my office, they have a tiny bit of a Christmas twist. I added orange essence to the mixture and decorated with chocolate cake covering and festive sprinkles.

Results

I was a bit nervous about these as I was feeding them to other people and there weren’t enough for me to have a sneaky taste before. They came out of the oven looking a bit pale but the chocolate soon covered that up. I was really pleased with how the covering worked out. I used a jug to pour it out and it easily moved to totally cover the top of the cakes.

The cakes went down well in my office. Although they sparked debate as to what was a bun, a fairy cake or a cupcake. The sponge was very light; perhaps too much so. I think this was due to slightly undercooking. The chocolate topping was well liked and the sprinkles gave it an interesting crunch. The orange flavour was very subtle and no one commented on it. I think the orange essence wasn’t big enough to get through against everything else. I think it’s probably better to use juice/zest to get that flavour.

I’m glad that second time around this recipe went better; although I am not giving a high score as it is something quite simple.

Overall score: 5.5/10

Soundtrack: Christmas, Michael Bublé