So my crazy old oven got fixed. Now it's my good old oven, and I figured a good way to celebrate it would be to experiment with some flavours I've never put together before. And I got this;



Vanilla cake, orange jam filling and lightly spiced icing. I just sent a friend the recipe, and decided I might as well post it here too.

THE CAKE.

You need 250grams each of
- self-raising flour
- castor sugar
- unsalted butter (I used Buttercup)

and

- 200ml buttermilk (I don't purchase actual buttermilk, just a tablespoon of vinegar mixed with 200ml milk is gd enough)
- 3 eggs, yolks and whites separate. whites beaten till fluffy
- 20ml vanilla essence, or more if you like
- 0.25 teaspoon baking powder

Baked for an hour at 130 degrees celcius in a convection oven.

After it cooled for about an hour, I cut it horizontally in preparation for...


THE JAM.

Okay I kinda lost the exact amounts of all that I used, but what I did was

1) grate 3 oranges, kept the rind aside
2) cut up the orange flesh, making sure to remove any white parts cos I didn't want any bitterness today
3) got the flesh to simmer in a saucepan with
- about a cup of brown sugar
- water
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- previously grated orange rind

It became a gooey mess, which I threw into a grinder so as to get it more...spreadable, less chunky. I am very sure this is not the proper way to do it, but I didn't plan to keep the jam for long, so it's fine lah.


THE ICING.

- icing sugar (use as much as you need till you get the consistency you want)
- 50 ml of milk steamed in cardamom seeds (not whole pods)

You might find the icing weird cos it's got cardamom and might taste like some indian sweetmeat while you're making it, but when it's spread thinly over a cake, it hardens to taste pretty good, though it really depends on your preferences. Some ppl don't fancy cardamom. Also, I didn't wanna use butter cream or fresh cream for icing cos I was afraid it'd make the cake too...heavy. But you nvr know. Might be good.

Yep, don't think I've left anything out. If you're gonna bake it, enjoy! I sure did. Had Coldplay on loop, and it was raining. Bliss. I should go back to regular baking.

Off to bed! Is it really Monday already? :-/