Orange and Poppy Seed Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Orange and Poppy Seed Cake
Home Cooking



Three things that have happened since uni started:

1. I realized how important sleep is
2. I decided I hate public transport
3. I have no time to do anything, including blogging

This is why my post frequency has diminished greatly. A good thing that's come out of my week of placement is that one of my supervisors brought in a beautiful cake he'd made.



It was an orange and poppy seed cake, which is not something I've really been into in the past. That is, until I had a taste of this one. It was delicious! Moist, subtly orange with this awesome textural element provided by the poppy seeds. Oh... plus cream cheese icing which I love so much you could probably smear it over plaster and I'd still enjoy.


He was nice enough to give me the recipe (written from memory!) and I made it within the week. It's a really good recipe and not at all complicated. He suggested pouring the batter into 2 rectangular trays but I used a small and a large loaf tin. The large one came out wonderfully but because I kept both in for the same time, the smaller one got a bit crusty. That's an expected outcome so you have to improvise for what baking utensils you have.

Orange and Poppy Seed Cake
Makes 2

Ingredients:

• 185g butter
• 160g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 80g marmalade (I used reduced sugar orange marmalade)
• 75g almond meal
• 110ml orange juice
• 3 tsp orange rind
• 40g poppy seeds
• 185g self-raising flour
• 125g cream cheeese
• 130g icing sugar
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Procedure:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius. Grease and line 2 baking pans.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale.3. Add the eggs one at a time until full incorporated.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the marmalade, almond meal, orange juice and orange rind. Add this to the butter and extra mixture and fold through gently.5. Stir together the flour and poppy seeds and fold this into the batter gently until evenly incorporated. Be careful not to over mix.6. Pour the batter into the pans.7. Bake for ~ 30-40min or until cooked. You know they're cooked when you press the top and it feels firm.8. While the cakes are baking, beat together the cream cheese and icing sugar for the cream cheese frosting. Squeeze in juice of 1/2 a lemon and beat a bit more until combined.9. After the cakes have cooled, ice them and serve sliced.


As the cake was baking, the whole house smelt absolutely amazing. I popped them out to cool and went for a drive. When I got home, I iced them and had a slice straight away. It was still a bit warm on the outside and I nearly died. Moist, squishy and orange aroma.

Texture shot

Mum asked me 'what flavor do poppy seeds have?'. I didn't know but I love the popping/chewiness they provide. The icing was extremely easy to make and added a nice, tangy zing.