Orange & Caraway Cake Disaster

[Melbourne12]

I'm not much of a cake maker at the best of times, but I was tempted by a recipe in a River Cottage booklet enclosed with last weekend's Telegraph.

Never trust a newspaper recipe.  I know that.  Unfortunately my baking knowledge wasn't enough to do a reasonableness check.

So I followed the River Cottage Orange & Caraway Cake recipe to the letter.

Which was a shame, because the end result was a sort of boiled suet in an almond crust.

Postings on the River Cottage website suggest that it's not just me, but that the recipe is seriously amiss.

Anyway, for the laughs, here's a picture of the disaster:

[attachment=1]

More detail (but NOT the recipe) here: http://johnnorman.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/caraway-orange-cake-disaster/

[Melbourne12]

[Gadget]

Bless, I have had some real disasters following recipes to the t, I make this one quite a bit and it works well for me so don't lose heart.  :)

Makes one cake (23cm/9 inch rectangular cake tin).

Ingredients:
185g (3/4 Cup) Unsalted butter
220g (1 Cup) Castor sugar
1 Tbs Orange rind
1 Tsp Vanilla extract
3 Eggs
300g (2 1/4 Cups) self raising flour
1 Tbs baking Powder
1/4 Tsp Salt
2 Tbs Ground almonds
90-100ml (1/4-1/3 Cup) Milk
3 Tbs caraway seeds
Castor sugar, for sprinkling over the top of the cake

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180° C (350° F).
2. In a medium bowl, mix the flour together with the baking powder, salt and almonds. Set aside.
3. Beat the butter, sugar, orange rind and vanilla extract until pale and creamy.
4. Gradually add and incorporate the eggs one at a time.
5. Then add the flour mixture and milk (alternately), a little at a time, until it is fully incorporated.
6. Fold in the caraway seeds and spoon into a greased and lined rectangular tin.
7. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 50-60 minutes or until lightly golden on top and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

Remarks:
Instead of using orange rind, you can use lemon rind (original recipe).
You can also replace the vanilla extract by 1/2 Tsp almond extract.