Upside down orange cake !

Harvey oranges.

Honey.
Upside down
Beautiful tesselating oranges with sticky sweet syrup. (can circles tesselate?)

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 oranges, cut into thin slices

3/4 cup soft butter

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tbsp grated orange zest

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp salt

1/3 cup milk

Line a 20cm square cake pan with baking paper and spray with cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a saucepan heat the honey and orange juice until boiling. Cook until the mixture is foamy and slightly thickened and an amber-brown colour. Pour the syrup into the base of the pan. Put into the fridge to thicken and cool. Cover generously with orange slices.

In a bowl cream the butter and sugar and orange zest. Add the eggs one at a time. Fold in the flour, baking powder and salt alternating with the milk. Dob gently over orange slices.

Bake for about 35-40 mins or until just set and springy to touch. The cake will soak up all the lovely honey and orange glaze. Cool in pan for 5 mins then turn out onto a large plate with a lip to catch all the leaky syrup.

Delicious warm, delicious cold. I'm sure it would make beautiful individual puddings. Ice cream or cream would also be a worthy addition

Banana honey cake for the nurses - success

Really moist and delicous
Thanks to my housemate for buying a whole bag of bananas and leaving them to get nice and smooshy and ripe on the table.

The kitchen I was using had nothing useful in it. I could only make something that doesn't require anything more sophisticated than a set of scales, a bowl, a cake pan and a spoon and fork.

2 eggs

80g caster sugar
50g runny honey
3-4 small bananas mashed - make sure they are extra ripe and full of flavour
50mL vegetable oil
50mL olive oil
150g SR flour

1/4 tsp bicarb soda
2 tsp mixed spice

Icing
Icing sugar
Lemon juice
Small knob of butter

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius. Grease and line a 20cm square pan.

In a large bowl mix the sugar and eggs until as white and fluffy as you can get them. Add the honey, oils and banana and mix well.

Add the flour, bicarb soda and mixed spice over the top. Gently stir to combine.

Pour into the cake tin and cook for 35-40 mins until springy to the touch. Cool in pan for 5-10 mins then turn onto a cake rack to cool. Ice once cold

Icing:

In a bowl mix together icing sugar, a knob of softened butter and lemon juice to make an icing consistency. I always do it by hand so don't have any quantities for this part. Just add lemon juice slowly a little at a time until it is the right consistency.

I wish I had an excuse to make such an extravagant looking delicious banana-rum cake with cream cheese icing and walnuts.. but I don't

We had three bananas ready for banana cake last Thursday. It is now Monday and I decided they were more than ready for banana cake. Completely black and super mushy!

I wanted something a little more indulgent than the typical banana bread. Try banana cake. The cake mixture is from Smitten Kitchen "Caramel Walnut Upside Down Cake". I altered it slightly and added a cream cheese icing - good move.

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 large eggs

1 generous cup of mashed very very ripe bananas (3-4 bananas depending on size)

3 tbsp sour cream (or yoghurt or buttermilk)

1 tbsp dark rum (I used bundy..)

1 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 170C fan forced. Grease and line two 20cm sandwich tins.

Cream the butter and sugars. Add the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add the banana, sour cream and rum and beat again. At this stage my mixture curdled and looked entirely unappetising - don't worry if this happens because when I added the flour it all turned lovely and shiny again.

Fold in the sifted flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt very gently.

Divide the mixture between the two greased cake pans. Bake on the middle shelf in the oven for 25-30 minutes (mine was 29 mins) or until they spring back when touched and start to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Leave to cool in their pans for about 5 minutes, then put onto a cake rack to cool completely. Ice when cold.

Cream Cheese Icing

In a bowl beat together 250g cream cheese, 3 tbsp butter, 1 tsp of rum (or more to taste) and the zest and juice of one large lemon. Gradually add 4 cups of icing sugar. Mix until you have a smooth consistency.

Place one cake (rounded side down) onto the serving plate. Cover generously with icing, and then sprinkle with lots of roughly chopped walnuts. Place the second cake on top, rounded side up, and cover with more icing. Decorate with more walnuts.

Store it in the fridge.

Bryony's favourite sour lemon cake.

This cake is amazing. Follow the recipe exactly. Do not skimp on lemon zest.

I made this one for Bryony's 25th Birthday party. Decorated around the edges with seriously delicious hazelnut palmiers from Martineau's.

I ice it with a simple lemon icing made of icing sugar, a knob of softened butter and lemon juice. I think it is best with a really thin icing as in this picture.

125g butter, softened

3/4 cup caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp grated lemon zest

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm square cake pan.

Cream the butter, sugar and zest. Beat in the eggs. Fold in the flour, sour cream and lemon juice.

Pour into the prepared pan. Smooth the top. Bake for 35-40 mins.

Do not overcook.