Orange and Pumpkin Cake

We have been quite busy this half term doing lots of fun activities at home, but it has been lovely and relaxing too because there has not been the usual rushing around that a week during term time involves!! Finding ourselves with 2 Pumpkins thanks to Flora who sent us a Halloween Fun Pack (more on this another day), it allowed Burton and Jenson an opportunity to have one each and design their own spooky pumpkin faces. With help from Daddy who carved out the pumpkins, the two boys were very happy with their creation and have taken them to their bedroom each night!!

Of course, with 2 pumpkins comes some excess pumpkin flesh, and not wanting to waste such tasty leftovers I decided to do some baking. The boys made some cupcakes (again, this will follow on in another post), while I made a sponge cake as I made a Pumpkin Traybake last year which was yummy, so thought it would be good to see if pumpkin works as well in a cake as it did in said traybake. I also decided to add some orange for flavour, and having made a Whole Orange & Chocolate Cake before, based on the one made by Mary Berry on last years GBBO Masterclass series, I decided to add a whole orange again.

So here it is: my Pumpkin and Orange Cake

Orange and Pumpkin Cake

 

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Cook time

25 mins

Total time

25 mins

 

Author: Jenny Paulin

Serves: 10

Ingredients

• 1 small orange
• 100g pumpkin flesh, grated or blended to a course pulp
• 175g Flora Buttery
• 175 golden caster sugar
• 175g sef raising flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• *FOR CINNAMON THE FROSTING*
• 1 tub of quark
• 150g icing sugar
• 50g butter
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• splash of orange juice
• white, milk and plain chocolate curls for decoration

Instructions

1. Place the orange in a pan and cover with boiling water and boil for 30 minutes until the skin softens. Be careful not to allow the pan to run out of water
2. Once softened remove from the pan and allow to cool until just warm to the touch
3. Pre-heat your oven to 180oC / 160o C (fan) and grease and line 3 x 8 inch diameter cake tins
4. Slice the orange in half and remove the pips and squeese out most of the juice into a glass.. Place the pipless orange into a processor or blender and blitz to make a chunky textured orange sauce. I added my pumpkin too to make an orange and pumpkin pulp.
5. Place the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat together until pale and creamy.
6. Add the eggs and a spoonful of the flour and beat again for a couple of minutes.
7. Add the orange and pumpkin, cinnamon and flour and mix until just combined being careful not to over beat.
8. Divide the cake batter between the 2 tins and then cook in the oven for about 25-30 minutes until cooked all the way through
9. *Cinnamon Frosting*
10. Crean the butter and quark together until pale and creamy and then carefully add the icing sugar (which I did in two batches) and beat until smooth and then finally beat in the cinnamon and a splash of the orange juice you kept back from the boiled orange for the cake earlier.
11. Once the sponges are completely cooled, spread half the frosting in the middle of the cake and the other half on the top of the cake.
12. Decorate with some white, milk and plain chocolate curls .

3.2.2802

Now the more eagle eyed of you will notice that my cream cheese frosting looks a little runny in this bottom photo, hmmmmm well you would be right and there is a very good reason for this. The reason is simple – my sponge was still a little warm inside and because I wanted to photograph it before the light faded, I went ahead and assembled it when I should have waited another 20 minutes or so!!! Yep, do as I write in my method and do not do as I did on this occasion!! *ahem*

However, this cake was very tasty despite my cream cheese frosting faux pas, and I popped it in the fridge after the photo shoot and it was fine a couple of hours later,  and then did not stay around for long!! So the lesson here is, don’t be in such a rush when photographing a cake lol!

I was sent some items from Flora which I used in this recipe.

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