Hey folks,

How’s it going?

I can’t believe another weekend is almost over. With January flying by – I’m thinking most people have given up on the healthy eating now? Can we get back to eating normally now and having the occasional slice of cake?

It gives me endless joy that blood oranges are back in season! I had a box delivered earlier this week and I’d been counting down the days until the weekend to be able to put them to use! The colour really does vary from one to another, some are practically orange with the tiniest pink blush, and others have a much darker red running prominently through.

I used some of them to bake this dreamy cake – it pairs together beautiful bright blood oranges with tonka beans (a South American seed with complex layered flavour notes of vanilla, caramel, almond, cherry and something almost like cinnamon). You can find them in specialist spice shops or online at Amazon.

It’s a real shame that the oranges lose some of their colour upon being baked but thankfully it detracts nothing from the flavour.

^ Would you look at this?! You can totally see just how moist and delicious it is! The black specks are the tonka bean shavings.

Moist almond flavoured cake, infused with spicy tonka bean and topped with a layer of citrusy, candied blood oranges.

So. Freaking. Good.

Grab some blood oranges whilst they’re around and make this soon!

^ I decided midway through it could use a dusting of icing sugar

Beautiful and delicious.

Enjoy,

-Kay

Ingredients

Candied blood oranges

• 200g granulated sugar
• 350ml water
• 2 blood oranges, thinly sliced
• 1 tonka bean

Cake

• 55g ground almonds
• 110g plain flour
• 200g caster sugar
• 110g salted butter at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 120ml buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tonka bean, finely grated
• Zest of one blood orange

Instructions

1. Begin by candying the oranges. Heat the water and sugar in a large frying pan over a medium heat, until just dissolved then reduce the heat until it’s on a slow simmer. Slice the tonka bean in half and place in the water to infuse.
2. Add the oranges and cook for 30 mins on each side to candy.
3. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5. Line and grease a 7-inch baking tin.
4. Layer the candied oranges over the bottom of the tin – I started in the middle then fanned out in a circle.
5. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy with an electric whisk.
6. Add tonka bean and orange zest and whisk again.
7. One by one add the eggs, whisking between each addition.
8. Sift the flour, ground almond and baking soda and mix well.
9. Add a third of the flour mix to the sugar and butter mixture, whisk to combine, before adding half of the buttermilk.
10. Repeat this process until all your ingredients have been added and combined.
11. Pour over prepared orange layer in the baking tin before baking for 45-40mins or until a cake tester comes out clean.
12. Once done, cool on a wire rack and dust with icing sugar before serving.