Playing “Paddy” cake

Are you overly fond of marmalade sandwiches? Are you from darkest Peru? Were you named after the train station you were found in? Were you wearing a tag that said,

 

Please look after this bear.

Thank you

 

Then this cake may be for you, Paddington.

We were recently gifted with a jar of homemade marmalade. I like marmalade but don’t eat it as often as I do other types of fruity spready things. Mostly we eat jam with peanut butter to make PB&Js and PB&M just somehow aren’t a good combination.

 

I fear not even Paddington would eat a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich.

 

So I was looking for a way to use up some more of the marmalade. I thought a cake would be  a way to go. So I scoured the internet and cobbled together several ideas until I had one that worked. My first idea was a chocolate cake with a marmalade glaze so it would taste like a Jaffa cake.

 

Mmmmm….Jaffa cakes. Sadly, Jaffa cakes are not vegan and so I haven’t had one since 2006, but I remember well the sponge cake with orange filling and chocolate-y coating. But then if the marmalade glaze was ofnadw (Welsh for terrible) I didn’t want to waste a perfectly good chocolate cake on it. Know what I mean?

 

So I decided to try an orange tea loaf with marmalade glaze.

 

I found a website called Veg Recipes of India.  The recipes use cold water or in this case cold orange juice instead of milk and are eggless. I had a work colleague back in England who was a Hindu and was a vegetarian who didn’t eat eggs but did eat lots of cheese. We often shared egg free baking tips. This website also used whole wheat flour so it was used to being made with brown flour not refined white. Always a good sign as sometimes recipes designed to be made with white flour can be a bit heavy with brown flour.

 

Adapted from www.vegrecipesofindia.com/eggless-orange-cake/

Paddington’s tea cake

Preheat oven to 180C/350F

 Lightly grease and line a loaf tin with parchment paper for easy removal.

 

Sift together in a bowl

1 cup whole wheat flour (I used 1 cup plus 2TB wholemeal spelt)

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

A pinch of salt

1 TB cornstarch (cornflour to my British peeps) or eggless custard powder if you have some on hand. I didn’t. Used cornstarch.

In another bowl mix together:

½ cup Demerara sugar

¼ cup oil (I used 2 TB oil and 2 TB plain soy yogurt as we had a last spoonful of yogurt hanging out in the fridge that needed to get used up)

 

Beat this until well mixed and creamy.

 Add 1 cup cold orange juice.

She used freshly squeezed but to get enough oranges to do that would have cost me £1.80 this week and a carton of not from concentrate OJ from Lidl was 99p. Guess which one I used?

 

Stir very well until sugar has dissolved. Slowly mix dry into wet until well mixed. Whisk to remove lumps.

Note: My batter was a bit on the runny side but I just cooked it anyway. Maybe in hindsight should of added a bit more flour but it turned out fine.

 

Pour into your loaf pan and tap to remove air bubbles. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke it through the middle. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes then carefully remove onto a cooling rack with the help of your trusty parchment paper.

 Note: Maybe because my batter was a tad on the runny side it took 45 minutes to bake.

 

When cool make the glaze.

Heat in a small pan:

3-4 TB marmalade

2-3 TB icing sugar

Pinch cinnamon

2 TB water or rum (I bet rum would have been fab but we had to use water)

Heat until bubbling then carefully poke lots of holes in the top of the cake with a fork. Pour the hot glaze on top and the liquid will run into the cake making it all yum and sticky and gooey inside and the shreds will stay on top.

Lightly sand the top with a pinch of Demerara sugar for extra crunch. (optional but nice)

 Let cool, eat some and declare it insanely good and then store the rest in the fridge!

Now invite a friendly bear over for tea! Or if you are not partial to bears how about the Tiger Who Came to Tea?