Cake & Cookies

As I don't really do getting dressed on Sundays if it's not strictly necessary, there won't be an outfit post today. Unless there is a huge demand to see me in pj's and a stripy Primark hoody? No, thought not.

So moving swiftly on, today I have done some baking. I love to mess about in the kitchen but since moving house (the old one had an enormous kitchen, the one in this house is absolutely tiny) and especially since being on the diet, I've been baking a lot less. But I can get around the lack of space by washing up as I go along (groan!) and I'm at the stage where I trust myself and my willpower not to eat everything I cook. So I made:

Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake

This is so easy to make but you do need quite a bit of time to deal with the topping. Tastes absolutely delicious, even when made with dairy free ingredients - I make virtually everything with Vitalite and soya milk, we don't have any normal stuff in the house!












Cake
6oz (175g) butter, softened
6oz (175g) caster sugar
3 large eggs
Grated rind of 2 oranges (yes, there are 3 in the photo - I ate the other one)
6oz (175g) self-raising flour, sifted
2 tablespoons milk

Topping
Juice of two oranges
4oz (100g) granulated sugar
2oz (50g) milk or plain chocolate. I used plain.



Set the oven to 180 C/350 F/ Gas Mark 4.
If you're using a normal tin (either loaf or round), grease and line the tin. If you've got some wonderful silicone bakeware (mine is Le Crueset, courtesy of some online surveys) use that instead, no greasing needed!
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and then add the eggs and beat well.
Add the orange rind, flour and milk and mix together with a wooden spoon.
Turn into the tin, smooth the top down and bake for 30-40 mins until a skewer comes out clean.
Take it out of the oven and leave to cool.









Once it's cool, score the top, like so:




Then for the topping!

Put the sugar and orange juice together in a pan and heat gently until all the sugar has dissolved. Boil for 1-2 mins, then remove from the heat and pour over the cake.

Leave this to soak in and melt your chocolate. The recipe calls at this stage for removing the cake from the tin before you put the chocolate on but as I don't have a suitable container, mine is staying in the tin for now. I go for a drizzle effect with the choc but you can make any pattern you so wish. Et voila, the completed cake:






And as I had half a bar of choc left over and some time on my hands whilst I was waiting for the cake to be ready for the drizzling stage, I whizzed up some dark choc and stem ginger cookies to take into tea break at work tomorrow: