Recipe review - Jaffa Drizzle Loaf Cake by BBC Good Food

Today we’re reviewing one of our favourite bakes. Wife of the Vegan man has been making this cake since before she met Mr Vegan Man, so was happy to introduce him to it. It is definitely a favourite of his and also amongst our friends. We have a monthly subscription to Good Food Magazine and frequently look to it for new recipe ideas, either to make or adapt to our own tastes. This one we have left relatively unchanged, although WOTVM prefers to use a slightly different method than suggested, which we will outline below. 

 

Ingredients:

 

140g butter, softened 

200g self-raising flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

200g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

6 tbsp milk

finely grated zest 1 large orange

For the drizzle:
 

3 tbsp orange juice

50g golden caster sugar

50g dark chocolate (optional)

 

Method:

Firstly, pre-heat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas 4 and butter and line the base of a 1.2 litre loaf tin. WOTVM has slipped up with this recipe before by using a slightly too small loaf tin, resulting in a cake batter volcano in the oven, which was not pleasant to clean up. Don’t underestimate how much

the cake will rise! 

 

The recipe advises to put all the cake ingredients into a bowl together and mix with a wooden spoon. This all sounded like a bit too much manual effort for WOTVM, who is also not a fan of the ‘all in one’ cake method (sorry Mary Berry!). We prefer to first cream together the sugar and eggs using an electric whisk (or by hand if you don’t have one) and then whisk in the eggs one by one. Don’t worry if your mixture looks a little split at this stage, adding the dry ingredients will remedy this. Finally, add in the flour, baking powder, milk and grated orange zest and give everything another whisk until all the ingredients are combined and the mixture is smooth.
 

Spoon into your lined loaf tin, a rubber spatula will help get all the mix out of the bowl, and place in the middle of the preheated oven.

The recipe suggests a cooking time of 40-50 mins, but we find it usually takes closer to 50 in our oven. Have a cheeky peek at 40 mins and then every 5 minutes thereafter if it’s not done. We like to check the cake is done by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake, it’s cooked when the skewer comes out clean without any wet batter on it. The top of the cake should be golden brown.

 

While the cake is baking, make the drizzle by combining the orange juice and sugar in a small pan. Heat gently while stirring the mixture until the sugar has dissolved, resulting in a sweet orange syrup. Once the cake is out of the oven we like to use the skewer to make a series of small holes in the cake. This is not advised in the recipe but we like to do this as it allows the syrup to soak into the cake as well as being on the surface. Spoon the syrup over the cake and leave to cool completely in the tin.

The cake can be consumed like this without the addition of the chocolate and makes a very tasty orange drizzle loaf as is, however, the dark chocolate really makes it shine. Try to use a decent quality chocolate as it needs to hold it’s own with the zingy orange cake. There are some great different varieties out there, this time we used Green & Black's. Break the chocolate into small chunks and melt in a glass bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Remove the cooled cake from the tin and then drizzle over the melted chocolate to finish. 

We find the cake keeps well in a plastic container for 4-5 days without drying out. When we aren’t sharing it with friends we like to take it to work with us for a lunchtime treat as it cuts neatly and can be easily wrapped up in single portions. This is such an easy cake to make and you can adapt the recipe using other citrus fruits in place of orange. We have previously used it as a basis for a lemon and blueberry loaf with lemon curd mascarpone icing. Delicious! 

Find the original recipe here.  We hope you enjoy making this recipe as much as we do, please let us know how you get on by leaving a comment below or sending us an email.