This delicious and moist cake is one of my new favourites. Just love the sticky moist texture with the hint of almond through. Totally different from normal flour based cakes and totally worth it.
WHAT YOU NEED:
-250g butter
-200g caster sugar or brown sugar (in an attempt to make my cake a little less processed I used brown sugar)
-50g of fine coconut
-2 oranges, finely grated zest and juice (You can increase the zest if you want a more dominant flavour )
-4 large eggs
-50g plain flour
-2 generous tsp of baking powder
-250g semolina
-200g ground almonds
-120g Greek or Natural yoghurt.
-275 g of caster sugar, 500mls water and a splash of orange juice for the syrup
(NOTE: Because oranges are often different in size and juicy-ness you may need to use some extra orange juice as needed. You need the batter to be smooth and almost spreadable. It is not as runny as most cake batters so dont add too much juice. Remember the majority of the moistness comes from the syrup poured on later)
WHAT TO DO:
1. Preheat the oven to 160 celcius or about 140 celcius if using a fan forced oven. In a 20 cm pan or serveral smaller pans (like I did) grease and line (if you like - I rarely line my pans as basically I am a little lazy and my baking trays are all non stick.)
2. Cream the butter and sugar together till pale and light. Slowly add the eggs and keep whisking to combine.
3. Sift in all the dry ingrediants (flour, semolina, baking powder and almond meal) and add the fine zest from your oranges.
4. Now mix the orange juice and yoghurt together and whisk slightly to combine.
5. Fold this till combined then pour into the prepared baking trays and spread over the top to smooth and even out.
6. Bake in the oven till a skewer comes out clean. (remember to test the centre of the cake and rotate the cake if you see one side getting too brown -just like in my uneven oven)
7. Heat 500 mls of water and add a spalsh of orange juice and the caster sugar and heat (on low to med) till all the sugar has dissolved and the syrup has started to thicken. You can add orange zest if you like.
8. Prick the warm cake and pour as much of the syrup evenly over the top.
Now eat! Yummm. This dessert is great served with vanilla yoghurt or sweetened plain yoghurt.
