Jaffa drizzle loaf

I’ve just baked a brilliant cake that I wanted to post about straight away! I’ve not been that well lately so haven’t been posting much, but now that my latest headache is into its third day I’ve decided that avoiding screens is not helping and I might as well blog!

I bought the good food magazine the other day, and it came with a little insert book called “30+ brilliant bakes”. This recipe immediately caught my eye as the first one I should make. It’s similar to a lemon drizzle cake, but with orange zest and syrup…..oh an of course with lots of chocolate drizzled over the top.

The ingredients for this cake are:

• 5 oz butter, softened
• 7 oz self-raising flour
• 1 1/5 tsp baking powder
• 7 oz golden caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 6 tbsp milk
• finely grated zest of 1 large orange

The recipe just says to put everything in a bowl and mix together, but I would suggest creaming the butter and sugar together first to avoid over-working the flour, or having your butter really really soft if you are going to do it all in one go.

Pour the mix into a loaf tin and bake at 160 – 180 degrees depending on your oven for 40 – 50 minutes. While this is cooking make a syrup out of:

• 3 tbsp orange juice
• 2 oz golden caster sugar

This is easy to do in a small pan over a gentle heat, just stir until all the sugar has dissolved.

When the cake has come out of the oven, pour the syrup all over the top of it – I made a few holes in the cake to make sure it went into the sponge and not just around the edges. Leave to partly cool in the tin before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely. Just a warning – don’t leave it in the tin too long or it may be harder to get out once the syrup has started to set!

For the final touch, melt 2 oz dark chocolate above simmering water and drizzle over the top of the cooled cake!

The verdict – absolutely delicious! Much like I find it impossible to stop mid way through a pack of jaffa cakes, I am finding it hard to stop cutting more slices of this off to eat while I write!