Orange and cinnamon cake with Orange Icing

This is a Rachel Allen recipe with slight tweaking from me. It was quite easy to make, and the taste is amazing. I will definitely be making this cake again .

Butter - 100 g

Eggs - 2

Orange zest - finely grated, from one orange.

Castor sugar - 100 g ( or 1/2 cup)

Icing sugar - 100 g (Bit less than 1/2 cup)

Plain flour - 1 cup (125 g)

Cinnamon powder - 1 pinch (the powder I have has a very strong flavor so a little goes a long way )

Baking powder - 1 tsp

The cake

Preheat the oven to 180 C in a conventional oven. In a convection oven, 160 C will do.

Melt the butter. Grease and flour the cake tine and line the base with butter paper if needed.

Note - whenever icing sugar is used, take care to sift it before adding to make sure there are no lumps.

Whisk the eggs with the orange zest, caster sugar and the icing sugar till soft and fluffy. Add the melted butter to this, making sure it is near normal temperature.

Sift in the flour, cinnamon powder and the baking powder. Fold the entire mixture gently. Do not beat .

Pour into the cake tin, smooth the top, bake for about 45 to 55 minutes or more, till the skewer comes out clean.

Take the cake from the tin and cool it on a wire rack before icing the cake.

The icing

Icing sugar - 100 g (sift )

Freshly squeezed orange juice - 1 to 2 tbsp

Mix in the orange juice gradually, till the icing can be drizzled on the cake, but not runny. Make sure the cake is properly cooled or else the icing will not set.

The process of preparation is very easy... the difficult part is waiting for the cake to bake, cool, and icing before waiting to dig into it ...!!! Th aroma of orange and cinnamon is irresistible and the fresh taste is amazing ...

Try it and let me know if you agree ....

Demolition site....

Right now, this is what our house looks like... the back wall has been completely taken down, the floor has been elevated 4 feet and there is debris and construction material heaped everywhere...!!

Our home, standing empty, and a bit forlorn, and needing a lot of work ...

The debris ..of which there is an unending supply, though there is a lorry coming in to collect more, everyday!!!

The ground floor, with what used to be yellow and green bedrooms on either side, and the kitchen in the middle... The artwork on my sister-in law's kitchen walls is mine, and matched the tiled backsplash near the stove.

The first floor is ours....which had been rented out for the past years.

It has been so long since i blogged regularly, that it seems like almost another life...and yet , it is not easy to sever this link as it connected me to so many brilliant people. Right now, priorities are in doing up our home, and the research is taking up most of my waking hours....

So right now, I just had the urge to do a post and the rather bad pics I have put up are a stain-glass painting and a tanjore painting. The first one was done the traditional way, with the help of a tracing pattern..so it is not my favorite of the series...

This one is absolutely beautiful, and it was done with the help of my instructor, who is the mother of two of my friends... I have not yet attempted another one of it's kind and this was done 10 years ago!!!

As for now, art is mainly on my mind, and procrastination being another 'art' I practice, it is remaining only in my mind... I guess it is past time I did something about that ..oh well...just have to wait till my daughter resumes going to school after her break ...!!