Courgette and orange cake

August 5, 2014 by Carole 4 Comments

Yesterday I did some baking. I honestly can’t remember the last time I made a cake. Ok, so I’ve dabbled with muffins and there was that breakfast apple cake, but I haven’t made a proper cake in over twenty years. I’m certain that I’ve never made frosting for one either.

I found a lovely recipe on the Good Food website and it sounded interesting and yummy enough to persuade me to have a go. I used gluten-free flour so tweaked the recipe a bit to compensate. I used an extra egg as mine were medium and not the large ones specified. I reduced the amount of oil and used olive oil instead of sunflower oil. I used a bit more baking powder too.

This is what it looked like straight out of the oven.

It came out a bit lopsided due to rising more on one side than the other but it didn’t affect the taste so not a problem. What was a problem was that I don’t have much in the way of large storage tubs. The ones that I had that were long enough, were not going to be deep enough. The deeper one wasn’t long enough. I’m sure most people would have thought of this slight hiccup before baking the cake.

I solved the problem quite easily in the end, but first I had to wait for it to cool down so I could add the frosting. While I was waiting, I got the frosting ready.

I’ve never made frosting before but it was very easy. I used a dairy-free soft cheese instead of the full-fat cream cheese and it worked out fine, if a little more fluid than it should have. The orange zest is all ready to decorate it, once it’s frosted.

And, eventually it was cool enough.

It did sort of slither down the sides a bit. It was just a bit too runny or maybe I’d just slathered too much on.

At this point it was still too big to fit in my box so I did this.

Once the end was lopped off, the rest of the cake fit nicely into the box. You’ll note the frosting is oozing down the cake slightly but I promise that didn’t affect my enjoyment of it. The frosting was delicious and the cake wasn’t half bad either. It was lovely and moist, and slightly crumbly. It tasted delicious. The orange flavour really came through, without being overpowering.

I’ll definitely be making this one again.

I wonder if it counts as one of my five-a-day, what with having all those courgettes in it…