Rhubarb & Orange Cake

 

After umming and ahhing whether or not to spend 3 quid on 400g of rhubarb (that’s an outrageous £1 per stick!) I decided to give it a go. And wow, this cake is so delicious, I’m glad I did. The recipe is in the May issue of Good Food magazine. Alongside the rhubarb some of the other ingredients you need are an orange, a 100g bag of ground almonds and almost a whole block of butter – naughty! It’s rich, fragrant, buttery, moist and very fruity. The rhubarb is chopped into good sized chunks and sits in sugar for about 30mins before getting stirred into the batter mix so you keep coming across lovely sweet pillows of soft fruit.

It took about 20mins longer to cook than the recipe stated but I think that’s more to do with our rubbish oven! That’s probably why it sunk a bit too much in the middle as I kept taking it out to do the skewer test.

We’ve been eating it with a dollop of mascarpone cheese sprinkled with icing sugar and a steaming cup of black filter coffee. Delightful – definitely one to bake again. I must keep my eyes open for a better deal on the price of rhubarb though.

If you fancy giving it a try but don’t want to buy the mag there’s a very similar recipe on the Waitrose site.

‘avin’ a giraffe! Folksy Friday

This week I tried to design a Sock Giraffe – hence the title ‘avin’ a giraffe! It looks nothing like a giraffe, although it does have a quirky charm with it’s grumpy face and droopy eyelinered lids. So after my hilarious attempt let’s have a look at some ‘proper’ giraffes made by some of the talented shopkeepers at Folksy…

Little Giraffe on Vintage Meccano Wheels – Northfield Primitives ‘Little giraffe is so quiet you wouldn’t know she was there. She tells me that she feels rather awkward most of the time, which is unfortunate as she is by far the tallest animal in the Nursery (25cm on her little red wheels) and is difficult not to notice….’

Giraffe in Stripes Print – ialbert  ‘The design is an original illustration created digitally.This print is the perfect a gift for family or friends’

Flower Giraffe Brooch – iloveyou  ‘The original giraffe Flower brooch decorated with flowers with Swarovski crystals.
You can not be overlooked.’

5 Scoops High Card – Lisa Hunt Illustration Doodle Shop  ‘Although perfect for a birthday, this card can be used for any occassion or just to say hello! All cards are printed on quality silky finish card with a white envelope and Left blank inside for your own message.’

Giraffe Print Coasters – Melting Point  ‘A set of 4 fused glass coasters with a Giraffe print pattern, each completely unique in gold/black and French vanilla glass’

Knitted Giraffe – Kent Crafts – ‘Giraffe toy, hand knitted in Stylecraft 100% acrylic yarn with soft polyester filling. Colours dark brown, light brown and camel. ‘

Just click on the pic or shop name to find out more about these long necked lovelies. Happy weekend from me and the creature! 🙂

Sticky Saucy Orange Cake

Today was one of those rare days I felt like baking a cake, mostly fuelled by a disappointing purchase of a bag of not very juicy oranges from Tesco. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away so I hunted about for a recipe to use them up. Well worth the effort…

Ingredients for cake

3/4 cup of butter

1.5 cups caster sugar

1.5 tbsp grated orange rind (I calculated this as the rind of 1 orange)

4 eggs

1/2 cup plain yoghurt

3 tbsp orange juice

2 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a cake tin.
2. Cream butter & sugar til fluffy, mix in orange rind.
3. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well.
4. Mix yoghurt & orange juice – add to mixture and blend well.
5. Sieve flour & bicarb into mixture and stir to combine until smooth.
6. Pour into cake tin.
7. Bake for about 40 mins. Stand in cake tin for 5 mins then turn out onto wire rack to cool slightly.

Ingredients for sauce

1 cup fresh orange juice

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp grated orange or lemon rind (or a mix)

1/2 cup of sugar

…I added a big spoonful of delicious chilli orange marmalade made by my talented friend Mrs. Chutney

Mix all the sauce ingredients in a pan. Bring to the boil and boil for 5 mins. Then pour over the cake while still hot.

We tucked into a slice while it was still hot and added a dollop of honey and ginger ice cream. Gorgeous 🙂