ORANGE, ORANGE, ORANGE AND MORE ORANGE CAKE

I'm no marmalade fan. Something about the taste of it just doesn't appeal to me whatsoever so I've

never been able to partake in a traditional marmalade cake. That was until I discovered Robinson's squeeze orange fruit shoot jam. It's an orange jam that actually tastes like oranges! Well this was a revelation for an my first thought was "I have to make an orange flavored cake with this" and golly gosh it was yummy. Not only is there jam inside but also orange juice, zest and candied peel so if your not a fan of orange this really isn't the cake for you!

This a pretty straight forward cake recipe so there isn't really much that you can change about it. If you can't get hold of the orange fruit shoot jam and you do like marmalade you can swap them out for each other and the recipe will still work (why you would want to put marmalade in the cake though I'll never know).

You can also leave out the candied peel if you wish but those little glistening nuggets do add a great bit of texture to the cake. Maybe you could replace them with something else such as a few chopped nut or raisins if you wanted. Take a look at whats in your kitchen and experiment.

A simple orange flavoured icing covering the top of the cake and scattered with candied peel is all you need to do to give this bake a final flourish but feel free to decorate the top of your cake as you see fit. Before you get started on the recipe below make sure you have a 20cm round deep cake tin, greased and lined with baking paper:

Orange Cake

175g Soft Butter

175g Light Brown Sugar

3 While Eggs

Zest Of 1 Orange And The Juice Of 2

2 Handfuls Of Candied Peel

2 Tbsp Orange Jam

200g Self Raising Flour

1 Tbsp Golden Caster Sugar

150g Icing Sugar

1. Begin by popping your oven on to 180 degrees (160 fan).
2. Beat together your butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy before adding in the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until well combined.
3. Add in the orange zest, juice of half an orange, 1 handful of candied peel and the orange jam and gently beat until well combined before adding in the flour and folding it through the mix until combined and you can see no streaks of flour.
4. Pour the cake batter into your greased and lined cake tin and pop into the oven for 30-40 minutes until golden brown on top and an inserted skewer comes out all nice and clean. 
5. Whilst the cake bakes, mix together the juice of another half of an orange with 1 tbsp of golden caster sugar until the sugar dissolves. When you remove the cake from the oven, prick the top all over a few times with a skewer or fork and brush the top of the cake with the sugary orange juice until it has all been soaked into the sponge.
6. Once the cake has fully cooled, transfer it to a wire rack. Mix together the icing sugar with a tbsp of the remaining orange juice until smooth, spreadable icing has formed. Spread the icing over the top of the cake and then scatter over the remaining handful of candied peel to finish.

With all that orange juice that has soaked into it, this cake will be super super moist, delicate and couldn't be bursting with any more orange flavors if it tried. The candied peel scattered over the top and throughout the cake itself adds a sticky, chewy texture to the cake whilst the icing finishes everything off making it an orange lovers dream. Step away from the marmalade, grab yourself some fruit shoot jam, a bag of oranges and get your bake on. Remember what they always used to say; the future is bright, the future is very much indeed orange!