Caraway seed and orange marmalade cake

I read somewhere that seed cakes are usual in England to celebrate the end of spring. We don’t have spring in Southeast Asia but I love seed cakes and I don’t have to wait for any particular season to bake one. This cake was inspired by Nigel Slater’s A frosted marmalade cake in The Kitchen Diaries, p. 8, which doesn’t include caraway seeds among the ingredients. Adding caraway seeds was my idea. I just used Mr. Slater’s recipe as a base. See, I like soft and moist cakes and his seemed to be the exact thing that I wanted.

caraway-seeds-orange-cake

If you’re not familiar with caraway seeds, they look like palay but darker, shorter and slimmer. They look similar to anise seeds too but totally different although the smell and flavor are not too dissimilar. Caraway seeds are highly aromatic (some describe the smell as pungent but I disagree), sweet but at the same time rather tangy. You can buy them dried in small jars in the spice section of most supermarkets. They do not require any further preparation; you just add them to the cake batter or bread or cookie dough.

This recipe yields one 10″x4″x3″ cake.

caraway-seeds-orange-cake

Ingredients:

3/4 of a 225-g. block of unsalted butter
3/4 c. plus 2 tbsp. of white sugar
rind of 1 large orange
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1-3/4 c. of all-purpose flour
1 tsp. of baking powder
1/2 c. of caraway seeds
1/3 c. of orange marmalade
juice of 1/2 orange

Preheat the oven to 350oF.

Lightly butter a 10″x4″ loaf pan (I used a non-stick loaf pan but I buttered it anyway just to be safe).

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and caraway seeds.

In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I used a hand mixer but you can do this with a wire whisk). Pour in the beaten eggs little by little, mixing as you pour. Add the orange marmalade and zest; mix just until blended.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until no streaks of flour are visible. I did this by hand with a rubber scraper using the cut and fold method. Pour in the juice and continue folding until blended.

Pour into the prepared pan, leveling the surface with a scraper or the back of a spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes.

caraway-seeds-orange-cake

Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and continue cooling on a wire rack.

The cake can be sliced after about 15 minutes while it is still warm. It was marvelous at that stage with the crisp sides and bottom and super moist interior. It’s not too sweet and the uncomplicated flavors make it an ideal partner for either coffee or tea.

May 16, 2009  Print This Post   
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Comments

8 Responses to “Caraway seed and orange marmalade cake”
  1. Connie says:

    THAT looks really good! I hope to try this recipe when I get an oven hopefully by the end of the year.

  2. karen says:

    thanks for this, miss sassy! i just finished baking it and i just love the smell. it tastes good too :)

  3. John Jester Ching says:

    hi miss connie! do i still need to preheat my turbo broiler (imarflex) when cooking meat or baking bread? what temperature and for how long? tnx!

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