Everyone has a few tried, tested and by hearted recipes for the popular and fav dishes like the biryani, pulao, chicken roast, fish molee, cutlets, cookies, cake, puffs and so on. Such failsafe recipes always save the day esp. when cooking for guests and you want to put up an effortless but delicious meal (which has been practiced to near perfection👩🏻‍🍳.) There is always a little something that you do differently in these recipes that makes them stand out from the other similar dishes. You smile and accept the compliments while keeping a tight seal on the little magic that creates the difference. And till date, I was lacking in my repertoire an easy, basic and good cake recipe; but now am extremely happy to have finally found one😘

After putting off for decades, I had to learn baking from scratch. I bought my first oven only last year 👉 Stumbling into Baking (Choosing an oven) 🍰

Ask around for some guidance on baking and anyone who is genuinely interested in helping you will suggest http://www.joyofbaking.com or the Youtube channel by the same name hosted by an amazing lady named Stephanie Jaworski. She makes baking seem effortless; her demonstrations stand out for being organized and informative, always explaining the why of adding an ingredient, which is so helpful, incase you don’t have it at hand and want to wait until you buy the item or proceed without or with an alternative. And so all credit to her !!

Starting with her recipes; over the course of my experimentations in baking, I have modified the recipes to my taste, incorporating the ingredients I have on hand and the amount of labour I am willing to extend. So my orange cake is a result of a few amalgamations and I am very happy with the end result 🍰

It’s not a fancy cake, in fact you can simply call it an orange flavoured sponge cake and I like that about it. The colour is golden yellow, the only decoration is the dusting of powdered sugar on top; has a tangy mild orange flavour; it’s sweet, moist and light; dangerously addictive 😋 and above all easy to make !!

There are ways to add more wow factor to the simple sponge with toppings as easy as making an orange syrup and generously pouring over the cake; but at the moment I am content with just the scrumptious orange cake that’s uncomplicated and needs the least effort.

And as I mentioned earlier, the challenge in baking is twofold – one is getting the perfect recipe and second is managing the oven settings for the perfect bake. Everyone focuses on the former; I struggled with both. And when you get both right; it’s bliss and that’s when the fun part of baking starts 😊. Everyone’s oven is a little different and so the settings and the time to bake will vary slightly.

And so for my orange cake baked in the 52 RCSS Morphy Richards OTG, I do four things

[1] Preheat the oven, for 10 min at 180℃

[2] Place the cake on the wire rack inserted into the second slot from the bottom

[3] First bake for 20 min at 180 ℃ with only the heat from the bottom rods

[4] Next bake for 15 min at 180 ℃ with heat from both the top and bottom rods (pic above 👆 )

Always check with a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake and if it comes out clean; it’s done, else needs more time.

The delicious aroma that wafts through the entire house during the course of baking is incredible and you really can’t wait to get a bite🍰. Waiting for the cake to cool down is the difficult part.

Oranges are in season 🍊

Till next post, take care !!