Sticky orange cake and vitamin C

Continuing my Brazilian theme, I’m testing out some more gorgeous Brazilian bakes. This particular cake (so my Googling tells me) is called Bolo de Laranja, which simply means orange cake. I renamed it so that it’s slightly more accurate!

I’ve been having a citrusy few days – I made my lemon and poppy seed cake last week and have been self-medicating with lemon, ginger and honey tea. It’s cold season and I’ve not escaped the onslaught. Luckily I’ve not lost my sense of smell or taste yet, so I can enjoy in a slice or two of this beauty in the interest of ingesting lots of vitamin C!

This cake is moist and delicious, and beautifully complimented by the orange syrup that is drizzled over the top. It’s also fabulous because it has so few ingredients, which means that it celebrates the flavours that are in there. As you’re making the batter you are very aware of how orange-y the mixture is; the citrus smell from the batter lingered in my kitchen even after I had cleaned up.

Orange cake:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 2 tsp bicarb
• 2 oranges
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup sunflower oil (or any vegetable oil)
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 2 tsp bicarb

Sticky orange syrup:

• juice of one orange orange
• ½ cup sugar

Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease and flour your bundt tin.

Remove the skin from your oranges and slice the flesh into quarters. Pop the quarters into your blender and blend for about a minute. You can strain the pulp out if you like, but the pieces should only be small, and I like to leave them in because more orange means more flavour! Set that to one side.

Mix your flour, sugar and bicarb together. Add your eggs and oil, then mix well. Add your blended orange and mix until combined.

Pour your mixture into your prepared pan. By this point, your batter should smell intoxicatingly orangey. Feel free to lick the spoon.

Pop the mixture into your oven for 40-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. The cake is supposed to be moist, so there may be a few little crumbs that cling to your skewer, but you don’t want clumps of uncooked mixture following that skewer out!

Set to one side to cool. Make a start on your syrup while the cake is hot, because the syrup is best poured over while the cake is still warm.

Put the sugar and orange juice in a pan and mix over a medium heat. When the syrup is dissolved and the mixture is starting to look clear, turn the heat up to high and stir continuously as it bubbles away. Only do this for about sixty seconds, until the mixture is glossy and slightly thicker. Allow it to cool for two minutes.

Poke holes in the cake using a skewer (between 15 and 20 should be sufficient) and then pour the warm syrup over the top. It will cascade over the sides and pool at the base of the cake. Resist the urge to lick the plate, as the syrup will still be hot!

The syrup seeps into the cake and adds extra  moistness to it, but also stays on the top and makes it wonderfully sticky. I’d suggest serving with cream to offset the beautiful citrus flavor… and a cake fork, to avoid sticky fingers!

Ps. For those of you who were intrigued by my mention of dulce de leche in my last post, it has arrived! I was so excited that I Instagrammed it before proceeding to eat half a jar. My dulce de leche was made by a talented woman named Vivi, who can be contacted via her Facebook page. It is well worth having a chat to her!!