Today I made one of my favourite cakes for a friend’s birthday. It’s a Tunisian Orange Cake recipe from Family Circle*. Funnily enough, the recipe was from the magazine’s My Favourite Recipe from a woman in Adelaide. I feel like I know her! The recipe is so easy to make and when people taste it they think it was made by some sort of cooking queen!
The hardest part (that is, you’ve got to do a little work) is grating the bread and citrus peel. The two interesting things I like about this recipe is that it contains fresh bread crumbs and the cake is cooked from a cold start!
*I’m so sad that Family Circle has gone out of publication. It was such a nice, low key, homey, crafty, cooking magazine. 
The bread is from Perry’s, an Adelaide bakery, and is my favourite French stick. This bread lasts for a long time and isn’t expensive. The bread I used in this recipe is a week old and would still be OK toasted. I did go and buy some more bread today to top up the recipe. And to eat! It has the crunchiest crust and soft, dense inside.
Tunisian Orange Cake
50g (3/4 cup) slightly stale white breadcrumbs
220g (1 cup) caster sugar
100g (1 cup) almond meal
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
200ml sunflower oil
4 eggs
Zest of 1 large orange, finely grated
Zest of ½ lemon, finely grated
Citrus Syrup
Juice of 1 orange
Juice of ½ lemon
80g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
2 cloves (I’m not a clove person so left this out)
1 cinnamon stick
Grease a 20cm springform cake tin. Line the base with baking paper and lightly dust the sides with flour. (I lined the sides as well.)
In a bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, sugar, almond meal and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, combine sunflower oil and eggs.
Pour the egg and oil mixture into the dry ingredients and combine well. Stir through the orange and lemon zest.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and place in a cold oven. Turn the heat to 180ºC and bake for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool then transfer to a serving plate.
Meanwhile make the citrus syrup. Heat the orange and lemon juice, sugar, cloves and cinnamon in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously, until the sugar dissolves. Simmer on low heat for 3 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick.
Pierce the cake all over a skewer. Spoon over some hot syrup and leave to absorb. Spoon over the rest of the syrup. Serve with cream!
5 comments:
What a yummy looking cake! Interesting use of bread- never seen that before apart from boarding school bread and butter pudding- a world away from this I'm sure!!! Will have to keep it on my radar next time I'm looking to bake :)
I am so going to try that - thanks for the pics and easy instructions
I miss Family Circle too. Better Homes & Gardens doesn't have the same feel - it's a bit more modern and fashionable. I loved that FC wasn't ashamed to be old fashioned and homey.
ooh someone else who liked Family Circle! and that cake is one of my favourite's although I use the recipe out of Stephanie Alexander's big book (forgotten the name!)
Made this cake tonight and it rose too much and spilled over the side and then left a dip in the center. Do you think I put just a little too much baking powder in? Everything was spot on, except that I didn't completely level the 1/2 tsp of baking powder (it was almost level though....maybe about 1/8 of a tsp extra) Well it tastes FABULOUS, I'm just wondering how I can make it LOOK a little more presentable. Has this happened to you?
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