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Spot the stuff-up
 Looks yummy don't you think? Gotta love a cake recipe that is forgiving of dippy cooks in the kitchen like me. I think I made four mistakes with this cake, none of them huge, but each one enough to possibly cause disappointment in the eating. This cake, is moist (see the plate above), not overly sweet, and intensely citrussy. I love orange in cakes, but this may be my second (and a close second at that) preference.Clementines, they're lovely in this cake. I thought a terrific way to celebrate winter would be to bake a cake using a delicious fruit of the chill months. I love winter, it's never cold enough in Melbourne to feel like hibernating, but our winds can find their way to your bones sometimes. Still, I love winter in Melbourne, and isn't baking much more enjoyable in cooler days? Yes, is the answer. This recipe Clementine Cake comes once again, from Nigella Lawson and How To Eat. There isn't anything difficult about this recipe, though you do need to think ahead a little as the clementines need to boil for two hours. Well you can just zap them in the microwave, but then you miss the lovely sweet citrus aromas as they bubble away.  A bit of before and after here. You might be forgiven for thinking they don't look much different after two hours in (topped up) bubbling water. Superficially this is true, but they are very soft, and tender, in fact the bottom mandarine in this bunch was rather squashed and sorry looking. So my first stuff up was nearly letting the water boil away completely, I should have either chosen a larger pot to use more water, or top up more frequently. Fortunately I did notice before things were desperate, and the fruit were unaffected by my mistake.The second mistake, as shown by this next photo? Tossing ALL the ingredients for the cake into the food processor at once. The instruction is to mush up the clementines first, before mixing the other ingredients. I suspect this has left me with a cake with larger pieces of mandarin skin than I might have otherwise had, but happily this didn't adversely effect the cake at all.  Batter ready for the oven:  You'd think that I'd not have a problem with this cake, having made it before, but no. I suggest that since it's been nearly twelve months since I last made this cake, that is more than enough time to remember the finer points. Such as covering the cake after the first forty minutes of cooking to ensure it doesn't darken or even burn too much. Hmm, yes, well, woops. No, this is NOT a chocolate cake:  I think I was very fortunate, in spite of what looks like burnt around the edges, in real life it's less dark than it looks, but it should be golden, not brown. Usually we have this cake plain, sans any form of icing, but due to my ineptitude in the kitchen today, I thought, I'd disguise it's darkness with chocolate. Two goes it took me to get right. Yes a block of Lindt down the drain (not literally). I overheated the chocolate and it split. Such a waste. Second time around, I *gently* melted 100g of Lindt 70% with about an equal quantity of cream. I stirred in a heaped tablespoon of icing sugar to this. I don't usually add sugar, but the cake is not super-sweet. Drizzled this mixture over the cake and then zested another clementine over that. The cake recipe is on Nigella.com: Clementine Cake 4-5 clementines (about 375g total weight) 6 eggs 225g sugar 250g ground almonds 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder Preheat the oven to gas mark 5/190ºC. Butter and line a 21cm Springform tin. Put the clementines in a pan with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours, a smaller pan may require top ups of water here. Drain and, when cool, pull open each clementine and remove any pips. Dump the clementines - skins, pith, fruit and all - and give a quick blitz. *Then you can tip in all the remaining ingredients and pulse to a pulp or you can beat the eggs then add the sugar, almonds and baking powder. Mix well, adding the pulped oranges and then pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin. Either way you then bake for an hour, when a skewer will come out clean; you'll probably have to cover with foil or greaseproof after about 40 minutes to stop the top burning. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, on a rack, but in the tin. When the cake's cold, you can take it out of the tin. Nigella says that this is better a day after it's made, but it's delicious any time. She goes on to explain that it can be made with an equal weight of oranges, and with lemons, in which case I increase the sugar to 250g and slightly anglicise it, too, by adding a glaze made of icing sugar mixed to a paste with lemon juice and a little water. *Nigella mentions in her recipe here, that she doesn't like using the processor for this. Curiously I am sure that in the TV series Nigella Bites, that is exactly what is done. In any case, that is how I attack it. Throw the lot in together (though do wizz up the fruit on it's own first) and it works a treat.  Glossy and beautiful, all signs of kitchen stuff-ups gone. What a pleasing result. Thank goodness for cakes like this on days like this! Family: Very contented and satisfied with results. related searches : Spot
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