It was my birthday last week so what better excuse to bake a cake? It’s been ages since I’d done any baking – I’m usually a savoury cook. I had a bit of time to play around in the kitchen and I quite fancied getting out the wooden spoon and mixing bowl and whipping up a bit of sweet love.
It was a glorious summer day so I went out for a walk in the countryside with my friend and her dog in the morning – traipsing through buttercup fields shot through with red grass and taking photos of the puddle ducks waddling down the path. Then in the afternoon I came back and made the cake.
I thought an orange or lemon poppyseed cake might be nice – my mother used to make them when I was little and I had some poppyseeds in the cupboard. I chose this orange poppyseed cake from Delicious magazine (the Australian version). It’s a Lisa La Barbera recipe from June 2005.
Recipe
Ingredients (serves eight)
Cake
1/2 cup (125ml) milk
1/3 cup poppyseeds
180g softened unsalted butter
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
Finely grated zest of 3 oranges
1/2 cup (125ml) freshly squeezed orange juice
2 1/2 cups (375g) plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
Syrup
1/2 cup (125ml) freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
20g unsalted butter
Zest of 2 oranges
Method
Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease a 24cm cake pan and line base with baking paper.
Place milk in a bowl and stir in poppyseeds. Stand for 20 minutes.
Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and pale. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Gently fold in zest, juice and poppyseed mixture. Sift flour and baking powder over top and fold in. Spoon mixture into pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool cake in pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a plate.
Meanwhile, place syrup ingredients in a pan over medium heat and stir until sugar dissolves and butter melts. Turn heat to high and simmer for 2 minutes. While cake is still warm, pierce holes in top with a skewer and pour over the hot syrup and zest. Serve warm or cold.
My road test
A note on ingredients: I used skimmed milk but otherwise the ingredients I used are exactly as given in the recipe.
It’s an Australian recipe so a “cup” equals a metric cup, equivalent to 250ml.
Method: The instructions were fairly clear. However, I do wish that recipes would give you the temperature for both conventional and fan ovens, especially for baking recipes. I had a bit of trouble with my friends’ oven – I over-compensated for the fan and the cake ended up a bit underdone. The recipe calls for a skewer test to tell you when it’s done and to perforate it before you pour on the syrup. We didn’t have skewers so I used a knitting needle, which may have misled me into thinking the cake was ready.
Result: Aside from being slightly gooey in the middle, the cake turned out well. I was a bit concerned it might have too many poppyseeds when I saw the mixture, but actually I liked the ratio. The cake was moist and heavy rather than fluffy and light, even around the edges, and I think the syrup had a bit to do with that. However, I also found the cake overly sweet and best paired with something slightly sour like Greek yogurt.
Verdict
I would not make this particular recipe again. I found it too sweet and the orange flavour was a bit intense. I still ate it but my friends politely ate one slice and then passed all week If it had been chocolate cake that would never have happened, even with the gooey centre.
It might be better without the syrup, which I think was a big contributor to the sweetness and intensity of flavour. I could ask for my Mum’s recipe and give that a go or I could make lemon poppyseed cake next time.
I think orange poppyseed cake would be great with some sort of cream cheese or yogurt icing instead of syrup.
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