Servings:10 – 12 Time: About an hour Difficulty: Easy
Description: A light, nicely textured cake with a zingy taste
Credit: Recipe taken and adapted from the BBC Good Food book 101 Cakes & Bakes
Ingredients:
– 175g/6 oz unsalted butter, softened
– 175g/6 oz caster sugar
– 3 eggs, beaten
– 250g/9 oz self-raising flour
– 50g/2 oz poppy seeds
– grated rind of 2 oranges
– grated rind of 2 lemons
– 4 tbsp Greek yoghurt
For the topping:
– 250g mascarpone cheese
– grated rind and juice of an orange
– 3 tbsp orange or lemon curd
– grated rind of 1 lemon
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C (fan 130)/Gas 2. Grease and line the base of a deep 20cm/8″ round cake tin.
2. Beat together the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, poppy seeds, citrus rinds and yoghurt until smooth.
3. Spoon the mixture into the tin and level. Bake for 45 – 55 minutes (until just firm)
4. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out and cool fully on a wire rack. Peel off the baking paper.
5. While the cake is cooling, mix the mascarpone with just enough orange juice to make a spreadable icing. Lightly swirl in the curd to give a marbled effect. Spread this over the cake and, if desired, cover the sides too. Finally, scatter the grated citrus rind over the top to decorate.
A recent variation
I’ve also made this in a plain bundt style circular cake tin – i.e. one with a space in the middle – and have also split it in half horizontally for a filling. In the illustration below, the filling ingredients were as follows:
- 150g butter, softened
- 300g Icing sugar
- 30ml orange or lemon juice
- 200g – 250g mascarpone cheese
- 2 Tbsp lemon curd (optional)
- Zest from ½ orange and ½lemon
Beat the butter for a few minutes then stir in the icing sugar with the juice. Beat in the mascarpone and curd then stir in the zests. This should be enough to fill the split cake and cover it. Then sprinkle over a few poppy seeds.
Retired Bloke on Food n stuff 