Orange and Almond Cake

It took me such a long time to find a recipe for orange and almond cake that I thought I’d post it here.

It’s a very light sponge with not too much overpowering almond or orange, which is what I like. For a stronger orange-y taste from concentrate orange juice could work well.

In the end I improvised on a normal Victoria sponge recipe and hoped for the best!

Ingredients:

200g unsalted butter - softened

200g granulated or caster sugar

200g self raising flour

4 eggs (I used medium)

1 tsp of vanilla extract

Zest and juice of one large orange

100g almonds – ground up – I bought flaked almonds and ground them up myself as the chopped ones were twice the price!

Method

Heat oven to gas mark 4.

Cream together butter and sugar until soft and fluffy

Add eggs in one at a time, beating in thoroughly before the next. Add vanilla and orange zest and juice.

Then fold in the flour and the almonds until combined.

Pour into a lined and buttered cake tin and bake for 1 hour – this can also make two smaller sponges which you can then layer up with icing/cream in the middle. My oven tends to take a long time to cook cakes so keep an eye on it every 15minutes or so.

Remove from oven, rest for a few minutes before turning out onto a plate or wire rack.

This cake makes a lovely warm dessert; we had ours with ice cream, which was lovely. The top is very crispy when warm and the inside fluffy and soft. Unfortunately no pictures as we've scoffed most of it already!