Candied orange and lemon cake

This cake was for a 40th birthday, I didn't get a chance to photograph much of it as I had some friends staying the weekend I made it, but it was defintely one of my favourite cakes that I have made.

I made my own lemon curd a few days before the cake was due, I used Nigel Slaters recipe, he is my go-to guy, not only do I just love reading the way he writes about food, his recipes are pretty fail safe and uncomplicated, he always says he is a cook not a chef and I think that comes through in his recipes. You can get the recipe for lemon curd here... http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/07/nigel-slater-lemon-curd-recipes

I also candied some lemons and oranges in advance, I sliced them as thinly as I could without slicing myself (I can be pretty careless, I have had a few kitchen incidents before...) blanched them in hot water for about 10 mins to soften the rind, and then made up a sugar syrup. I used a 2 parts sugar to one part water mixture, brought it to the boil, added the fruit and simmered for about 1 hour. This smelt absolutely amazing, zesty and kind of christmassy.

Once they were done I lifted each slice from the syrup and left to dry a little on some baking parchment, they remain really sticky and to be honest aren't very nice to eat (pretty much impossible really) but they look pretty.



I sieved out the remaining sugar syrup as I was left with an intensely zesty syrup, think I am going to make a sorbet with it!


For the cake I used the following recipe...

350g/12oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
350g/12oz caster sugar
4 oranges zest only, plus juice of 2 oranges
3 large pieces candied lemon peel , finely chopped
6 free-range eggs
3 tsp baking powder
300g/10½oz self-raising flour
50g/2oz cornflour

Using a basic creaming butter and sugar, adding eggs, and then the dry ingredients. The addition of cornflour made the cake really moist, which also meant it was a bit delicate as you will see...

I whipped some cream, folded in some of the lemon curd and then sandwhiched the layers of orange cake with the lemon curd and lemon cream. This made the largest cake I have ever made as it wouldnt even fit under my cake dome, I also had to carry it into the centre of chorlton to get to the party I was going to and it got extremely squished! I'm glad I had a picture of it to show the birthday boy as it looked a bit of a sorry state when he first saw it, but he was really pleased with it and it tasted pretty nice (if I do say so myself) so all was well.

Soph x