Honey, almond and orange cake

I searched online and asked on Twitter if anyone could suggest a recipe – but nothing was calling out to me. Then yesterday Belleau Kitchen posted a blog with a link to, yep, you guessed it, Honey, almond and orange cake! Yay! It was fate. Meant to be. Serendipitous. Written in the stars. It was blinking lovely too! I even, unbelievably, managed to source some baking powder at the local tiny shop, after a few days’ fruitless searching previously with a cake baking session in mind.

My only amendments to the original recipe were that I doubled the amount of orange zest and, as he suggested, added an extra egg – oh I also didn’t put flaked almonds on top – I’d already ground a load of almonds up, I wasn’t about to start shaving another load into slivers too! I don’t think it suffered for it though. Here is the recipe that I did:

Serves: 6
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes

115g butter
80g sugar
80g honey, the best you can get your hands on
grated zest of 2 oranges
3 eggs
165g plain flour
60g ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
75 ml milk

For the syrup:
2 tablespoons honey
Juice of 1 orange – only use fresh, it wouldn’t be the same with processed juice

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Grease and line a 20 – 25cm diameter cake tin (the recipe calls for 20 cm but I managed perfectly well with a wider tin of about 24 cm). 
2. Beat your sugar, butter (I softened mine in the microwave a little first), orange zest and honey in a bowl. Go for it with your wooden spoon for 5 or 10 minutes until it gets a bit fluffier and lighter. 
3. Then in a separate bowl mix your flour, bicarbonate, baking powder, cinnamon and ground almonds together. 
4. Now, break an egg into your liquid mixture and beat, then add a little of the flour mix – repeat this three times until your eggs are all in. Gradually stir your milk in and add the rest of your flour mix. 
5. Give the batter a thorough final seeing to with your spoon, and then pour it into your greased and lined cake tin. Cook for 30 – 40 minutes, keeping a close eye on activity. I covered with foil after 15 minutes as mine started to darken a little too much on top. 
6. When your cake is done, take it out and let it cool so you can handle it easily, before taking it out of the tin and placing it gently onto a plate. Prick all over, about 20 times with a fork or skewer.
7. For your syrup, on the hob or microwave, gently warm through the honey and orange juice. When your syrup is ready and the cake is still warm, spoon it evenly all over. Allow the cake to chill in the fridge. It benefits from a little Greek yoghurt (cream would be too rich) and even a little of the same honey drizzled on top to serve. Fabulous – and thanks so much to Belleau Kitchen!