Blood Orange Mini Cakes with Blood Orange Toffee

Blood oranges are in season now in August in Sydney, and there is almost a spring-like feeling in the air!

I love the colour and sweet juiciness of the fruit. They are so more exotic than other oranges.

I wanted to feature them in a cake, and decided to use my little cake molds with detachable bottoms. They’re a bit bigger than regular muffin molds and their straight sides make attractive cakes.

I featured blood oranges in the cake mixture, the buttercream and the toffee decoration.

The cake is simplicity itself – made in the food processor. I could call it the “curdled” cake as the mixture is completely curdled until you add the flour! Don’t worry, it all comes together in the end!

Cakes

Ingredients

2 blood oranges

125g very soft butter

200g sugar

2 free range eggs

½ tsp vanilla essence

200g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

Grease some little cake tins or muffin molds. You should get 6 – 8 cakes depending on the size of mold you use. Alternatively, grease a 20cm cake tin for one larger cake.

Chop the blood oranges in quarters and remove each end. Blitz in the food processor until reasonably finely chopped – there should still be some small chunks in the mixture.

Add the butter and sugar and blitz in the food processor. The mixture will look very curdled! Add the eggs and vanilla and blitz again, the mixture will still look very curdled!

Gently fold in the flour and baking powder, making sure not to over mix or the cake with toughen. The cake mixture will now look “normal”.

Fill the molds/ cake tin. Bake for 30 minutes for the smaller cakes or 45 minutes for the larger cake, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and cool in molds/tin before removing to a wire rack.

Buttercream Icing

Ingredients

100g softened butter

200g icing sugar

Juice of ½ blood orange

Method

Cream the butter, icing sugar and blood orange juice with an electric mixer or you can also use the food processor, to make a stiff but spreadable icing.

Blood Orange Toffee

Ingredients

3 tblsp caster sugar

Juice of ½ blood orange

Method

Heat the sugar and blood orange juice in a heavy based saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil without stirring for 10 minutes or until a spoonful of mixture cracks when you drop it in a glass of cold water. Pour onto baking paper on a baking tray to set; break into shards when cold.

Ice the cakes/cake with the buttercream icing and decorate with the toffee shards.