Phoenix cake

We're back! Or rather, I'm back, as despite my best efforts, there's still only one of me. Even the most irregular reader will have noticed that it's been a little while since I last did any baking. It's been a bit of a busy, not terribly fun past year. But just as the phoenix rises from the ashes of its previous incarnation, this blog has returned... with cake! And yes, that tenuous premise is the only reason why this cake is called Phoenix Cake.

Phoenix Cake
Ingredients
For the cake

• 175g Butter
• 85g Soft dark brown sugar
• 85g Caster sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 160g Thick cut marmalade
• Zest of 1 orange
• 200g Plain flour
• 2tsp Baking powder
• Juice and pulp of 1/2 orange

For the glaze

•  Juice and pulp of the other 1/2 orange
• 100g Marmalade

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugars (both types) together until fluffy.
2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
3. Beat in the marmalade and orange zest.
4. Fold in the flour, baking powder.
5. Stir in the orange juice.
6. Pour into a greased loaf tin and bake for ~40 mins at 180C.
7. Heat the orange juice and marmalade in a pan and reduced down to a syrup.
8. Poke holes in the top of the cake with a skewer then pour the syrup over the cake.

Before baking, it looks like any other cake.

Straight from the oven, and things are looking good! It's fallen, so clearly too much baking powder, but otherwise it's looking pretty good.

And look at the underside! I just want to dig into it straight away! It's gooey and sticky and moist - kinda like the texture of a sticky toffee pudding.

Gorgeous colours in the glaze-to-be. This is quite early in the reduction, so it's still quite liquidy here.

Finished! I will confess that while I was planning this cake before I started actually started baking it, I was pretty nervous about it. It'd been so long since I had baked a cake, I was worried that I might have forgotten how to, or lost my touch with it. Well, we'll find out for certain tomorrow when I bring it in to the lab to share, but I think it's looking like a pretty solid comeback :o).