Blood Orange Tea Cakes
upside down is sometimes the right way up
Von Clausewitz once said of cakes something like “the baking of a cake is a simple proposition, but in the baking of cakes nothing simple is ever easy”.
Having thrown out my fair share of “simple & super-easy cake recipes”, I find myself in full agreement with the sentiment.
These days I instead try to focus my efforts on the cakes which are actually easy to make, which taste great and if they look good, well, then that’s just an added bonus. The recipe for a blood orange tea cake fulfils all of these criteria. Not only that, but everyone will be impressed at how you are able to make a tea cake with a slice of blood orange baked into the top.
The secret is to bake the cake upside down in a muffin form. Well, this isn’t actually even much of a secret. There are several million recipes setting out an exact method for this online. So if this cakes seems like wizardry to you, then I recommend spending less time outside touching grass and more time inside & online).
Ingredients (makes 12 muffin sized tea cakes)
You will need a 12 muffin baking tray
5 washed blood oranges:
2 blood oranges sliced into thin slices
zest of 2 blood oranges
juice of around 3 blood oranges (gives around 125ml)
retain some blood orange juice and pulp for icing sugar glaze (optional)
200g granulated sugar (normal white sugar is also fine, I typically use a proportion of vanilla and granulated in this recipe)
260g plain flour
2 large eggs
110 gram softened butter
60 ml mild olive oil
125ml plain yogurt (normal or greek yogurt works fine)
2 teaspoons baking powder
icing sugar (optional for glazing the tea cakes)
pinch of salt
Method
Slice 2 blood oranges into thin slices. Place these 12 slices at the bottom of each hole in your muffin tray. You will find that some of the slices are too large to fit. For these, slice out a segment (or so) from the orange slice so that the circumference of the orange slice becomes smaller. You want them to fit snugly. Butter the muffin tray and then set aside until cake mix is ready.
In a large bowl, mix the zest of 2 oranges and the sugar with your fingers.
Add the flour, a pinch of salt and baking powder and blend well with a spoon.
In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, egg, orange juice, softened butter and yogurt.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients. Mix and fold gently until all the ingredients are blended well.
Pour the batter into the muffin form on top of each blood orange slice.
Bake in the oven at 180c fan for around 40-45 minutes until golden brown.
Check the cakes are baked by skewering with a knife. If the knife comes out clean, it is ready.
Turn out the cakes and allow to cool on a wire rack with the orange on the top.
For optional glazing once cooled, mix icing sugar with a teaspoon of blood orange juice mixed with some zest and pulp.
When you are serving you can optional slice the bottom part to give a flat resting cake (I never bother, why waste perfectly good cake…)
Looks super yummy!
And I concur — I mean, in this day and age what kind of crazy person would go outside and touch grass ;)