Orange Poppy Seed Cake with Passionfruit Glaze

I was feeling a little blue this afternoon, and not to mention a pounding headache the size of  Jupiter. After several glasses of water and a panadol, I decided to make an orange cake; perhaps to inject some colour and zest to lift my spirits. Well, the orange cake has been nagging at the back of my mind for awhile now; although it could also be the subconscious effect of my brother’s latest youtube obsession with The Annoying Orange series!

If you want to be annoyed (or amused) more, you can click on all the other Annoying Orange series on YouTube. I especially like the Halloween special with ‘Plumpkin’.

Anyway, back to my orange poppyseed cake, it’s essentially a butter cake which I’ve added to it, fresh orange and lemon juice, the zest of both fruits and poppyseeds soaked in fresh milk and baked in a bundt tin. To give it that extra zing, I drizzled some passionfruit glaze over the cake. J & I had a slice each and the rest of it, again, goes to his workplace tomorrow. I need lots of orange energy right now. Loved the orange flavour, the zing of the passionfruit and the colour of the cake. Enjoy!

Ingredients

250 g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
270 g caster sugar
340 g plain flour,
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
5 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1/2 cup orange juice (mine was the juice and pulp of one orange, pulverised with a hand blender)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon orange zest, finely grated
1 teaspoon lemon zest, finely grated
150 ml fresh milk
40 g poppy seeds
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp (about 3 passionfruits)
150 g pure icing sugar
1 teaspoon hot water
an extra orange to make long orange peels
1 x 8 inch Bundt cake tin

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 160oC and grease the bundt cake tin.
  2. Soak the poppy seeds in the fresh milk
  3. Sift the plain flour and baking powder into a separate bowl
  4. Cream the softened butter, 250 g of the sugar, orange and lemon zest with an electric mixer on high speed until pale and fluffy.
  5. Lower the speed and add in the egg yolks one at a time; beat until just combined.
  6. On low speed, add in the sifted flours, milk with the poppyseeds and the fresh orange and lemon juice; mix until just combined (make sure all traces of flour especially at the bottom of the bowl has been mixed in well)
  7. In a separate clean and dry bowl, beat egg whites until foamy; add in the cream of tartar and continue beating, gradually add the remaining 20g of sugar; beat until soft peaks form.
  8. With a large metal spoon, fold in the beaten egg whites into the cake batter until just combined.
  9. Spoon batter into bundt cake tin ; level out with the back of a wet spoon.
  10. Bake in pre-heated oven for 1 hour; insert a skewer to test that it’s done. It should come out clean.
  11. Cool in the oven for 10 minutes; then remove from oven and turn onto wire rack to cool completely.
  12. To make the glaze, combine the passionfruit pulp, icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of hot water and stir until smooth. If glaze is too thick, dilute with a little bit of hot water. Glaze should not be too runny nor too thick.
  13. Pour glaze over cooled cake.
  14. With a peeler, peel long strips off the orange zest. Remove any of the white pith underneath. Slice thinly and garnish cake.
  15. Serve when icing has set. (15 minutes should do it)

 

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