Obscene Orange Slices!

Why are these cakes obscene, I hear you ask?? Well... they aren't really slices at all, they are more like great big paving slabs of orangey cakey goodness! The bigger the better, it's the only way to go with cakes! These cakes were another creation for a Sunday lunch with my fiancée's family! These cakes have a soft moist sponge with a delicate orange flavour and are perfect for afternoon tea's or summer desserts! The recipe is adapted from a lemon cake slice recipe from the May issue of BBC Good Food (yet again, I do love this magazine! I have a new issue now, you will be glad to know!). Such a simple recipe too, and I'm sure with a little ingenuity, you could adapt these cake slabs to suit other fruity flavours as well (I'm thinking maybe blueberry and white chocolate...oooh yum!). Here's how I made them...

Orange Slices

175g butter, softened

140g caster sugar

140g self-raising flour

50g ground almonds

1/2tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

juice 3 oranges, zest of 2

200g granulated sugar

METHOD

1. Preheat oven 160°C. Line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment.

2. Beat the butter, caster sugar, flour, almonds, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and the orange zest and half the juice, with an electric whisk until smooth.

3. Scrape into tin and bake for 25mins, until an inserted skewer comes out clean.Then cool.

4. Turn out onto a wire rack, trim edges then slice into squares.

5. Dip cakes quickly in remaining orange juice and then cover in granulated sugar. Then leave to crisp up and then munch away to your heart's content.

This is a very simple but equally delicious recipe with a subtle flavour. I think it's perfect for quite sophisticated soirées such as afternoon tea(a bit of change for me eh?). Also when I was baking this I didn't have any ground almonds so I substituted the same amount of rice flour and it worked well (just a wee pointer, ya know!). Well enjoy baking this delight guys. I always ask myself at this stage, what delights will I bake next? Any ideas? Happy baking!

Rachael xx.