Blood Orange Upside Down Cakes

It’s the last couple of weeks for blood oranges in Sydney. Nothing beats the flavour and colour of blood oranges – I await the arrival of these ruby red gems eagerly each year and try to include them in lots of delicious recipes. I made these mini cakes a year ago, and, looking over blood orange recipes, thought I would repost this one again, just in time for the last of the fruit.

These are some more blood orange treats I have posted and are definitely worth a try.

Blood Orange Breakfast Sorbet with Granola and Fresh Fruit

Blood Orange Friands

Blood Orange Upside Down Cake

Little Strawberry and Blood Orange Cakes

Here’s the recipe for these “mini” blood orange cakes.

Ingredients 

Candied orange slices

2 blood oranges

200g caster sugar

Cakes

2 blood oranges

200g  caster sugar

125g very soft butter

2 free range eggs

½ tsp vanilla essence

125g plain flour

75g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

Method

For the candied orange slices, finely slice 2 of the oranges, discarding the ends and keeping as many slices intact as you can.

Dissolve 200g of the sugar in 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan, and bring to the boil. Carefully place the orange slices in the syrup and simmer them until they are soft and sticky. Remove from the syrup using tongs. If the syrup is not reduced enough, cook it for a few minutes extra to thicken – but don’t let it go to toffee.

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

I use a set of mini cake tins which have removeable bottoms for these upside cakes, see the photo.

You could also use mini springform tins, but you will end up with small cakes rather than mini cakes. If you don’t have a tin/s with removeable bottoms, you could use an ordinary muffin tin, but turning out the mini cakes will be tricky, as you need to keep the candied orange slices intact.

Grease whatever tins you are using well, and line the bases with circles of baking paper.

Chop 2 of 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 200g of the 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”.

Place the candied orange slices on the paper bases in the tin/s, one should be enough unless you are using a larger tin. Be as artistic as possible, remembering, as these are upside down cakes, that the bottoms become the top! Place the batter over the top of the slices.

Bake for 20- 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cakes comes out clean. As these cakes are small, they may need a little less cooking, but they are also quite moist, so may need the allotted time. My advice is check after 15 minutes and keep checking thereafter. If you are using small springform pans you will need a little longer.

Remove from the oven once cooked and cool the tin/s on a wire rack. When the cakes are cool (not cold), carefully remove each mini cake from the tin/s. Even more carefully, take off the bases and peel away the baking paper.

Brush the mini cakes with the blood orange syrup and serve.