Citrus Syrup Cake

I made this cake last week, partly to use up some of the citrus flavoured sugar syrup left over from making candied peel. This recipe was adapted from one of Nigel Slater's published in the Observer magazine, I used less polenta and more ground almonds than originally suggested, I assumed that polenta is only really used for extra texture so this shouldn't make too much difference. The cake did need about an additional 30 mins baking at the second stage, so maybe the polenta also absorbs some of the moisture. After baking I poured over as much of my left over citrus syrup (heated up) as I could manage, about 250ml, this made the finished cake very moist and sticky, to the extent it was best eaten with a fork. No one complained.

Ingredients

210g butter
210g unrefined caster sugar
100g almonds
3 large eggs
175g ground almonds
100g ground polenta
a level tsp baking powder
finely grated zest and juice of a large orange

Method

Using a non-stick, loose-bottomed cake tin about 20cm in diameter, line the base with a piece of baking parchment. Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 5. Put the kettle on.

Beat the butter and sugar in a food mixer till light and fluffy. Put the almonds in a heatproof bowl and pour over enough boiling water to cover them. Leave for 5 minutes, then pop each nut out of its skin, squeezing between thumb and forefinger. Discard the skins.

Break the eggs into a small bowl and beat them lightly with a fork. You just want them lightly mixed. Pour a little of the beaten egg into the creamed butter and sugar, beating thoroughly, then slowly continue adding and beating till all the egg is used up.

Finely chop the almonds. Add the chopped and the ground almonds to the egg cake mixture. Stir the polenta and baking powder together then add it gently to the mix. Lastly, mix in the grated orange zest and juice.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, then turn the heat down to 160C/gas mark 3 and continue cooking for a further 30 minutes, covering the surface with tin foil if it is browning too quickly. Remove from the oven but leave the cake in its tin.

Spike holes into the top of the cake (still warm in its tin) with a skewer, pour over the hot syrup and leave to cool.

For the syrup:

a large, juicy lemon
a large orange
100g golden caster sugar
2 tbsp liqueur, such as limoncello

To make the syrup, finely grate the zest from the lemon and orange over a measuring jug. Cut the fruits in half and squeeze their juice into the jug, then top it up to 250ml with water. Pour into a saucepan and add the sugar. Bring to the boil and keep at a rapid bubble until the sugar has dissolved and the liquid has reduced to about 175ml. Remove from the heat and add the liqueur.

Serves 8.

The cake was, as I mentioned before, very moist and sticky, but I have to agree with what Nigel Slater said last week:

I don't really mind a moist undercrust - pastry or cake sodden with juice being a good thing in my book.

I think the mixed citrus taste worked well and the polenta gave it a good bit of bite. We had one slice with a cup of tea while it was still warm, and some more for pudding later in the evening.
I'm tempted to make it again soon, not least as I have more of that syrup to use up.

Chocolate Covered Candied Peel Recipe

After making Candied Peel last week I was keen to try doing some baking with it, so I mulled over the possibilities. It felt a bit early in the year for Pannettone (I will try this recipe, as it can be done in the breadmaker) and the same with Christmas pudding. I thought about just making some flapjack and adding the peel instead of the usual mix of raisins and chopped apricots. But, in the end I succumbed to the inevitable and dipped it in chocolate.
When searching for recipes I was spoilt for choice, it seems everyone who has ever made candied peel then feels the need to coat it in chocolate.
I expect there are a few reasons for this:

1. because you can, and it's an excuse to use chocolate.
2. because candied peel by itself, although delicious, can get a bit sweet if you eat too much of it, and dipping it in a bitter chocolate enables you to eat more of it while feeling like you are eating a delicacy rather than just devouring a jar of candied peel.

So, I was won over, after some reading up (and worrying about the intricacies of 'tempering' chocolate - far too time consuming for something that won't last more than a few days) I settled on the following:

Ingredients

About 25 long (5cm) strips of Candied Peel (Orange, Lemon, Lime, Grapefruit)
50g (half a bar) Lindt 70% cocoa dark chocolate

Method

Break the chocolate into a pudding basin over a small saucepan of simmering water and wait until it melts.

Holding the candied peel at one end, dip and twist into the molten chocolate until about two thirds are covered.

Allow drips to fall back into the basin, then lay out to dry on a wire rack over greaseproof paper.

Makes: 25

These dried with a matt finish, no doubt because I didn't go to the trouble if tempering my chocolate, and looked extremely tempting. The mix of sweet and citrus peel with the bitter dark chocolate works very well. These were meant for a birthday present on Tuesday, but I don't think they'll last that long.

Candied Peel Recipe

This is taken from Elise Bauer's Simply Recipes blog.

Ingredients

Citrus Peel (lemon, grapefruit, orange, lime)
Granulated sugar
Water

Method
See here for pictures of the method.

Grapefruit skins are much thicker than other citrus skins. Cooking them a while in boiling water helps loosen up the white pithy part so it is easier to scrape off.

Scrub the outside rinds thoroughly to remove any dirt. Put rind in cold water, bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Drain and repeat this process two more times. Drain, rinse with cold water, and scrape away the pithy white part of the peel. Slice into strips.

For each cup of rind, prepare a sugar syrup of 1 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water. Put rind in syrup and cook slowly until syrup is completely absorbed - several hours. Stir occasionally and watch carefully near the end of the process.

Cool the peel and coat the strips with granulated sugar.
Dry overnight on a rack.

Candied Peel

When making marmalade last week I froze some unused lemon peel with the thought of using it for something constructive. After some thought, and research, I decided to have a go at candied peel, not something I'd usually even use. Hopefully having some in the house will be useful when it comes to baking, and for mincemeat at Christmas if it lasts that long.
I wanted to have a wider range of peel than just two lemons, so the bag in the freezer grew to contain the following:

Peel of three lemons - 170g (left over from marmalade making)
Peel of 1 grapefruit - 140g (a breakfast treat)
Peel of five oranges - 255g (a regular winter craving)
Peel of 2 limes - 100g (I wanted some green in the mix, so cooked Thai curry)

I pulled all this out the freezer in the morning so it was thawed when I came to prepare it.


There seemed to be several ways of preparing the peel, either repeated boiling and draining, or just prolonged boiling, but all recipes needed the peel to have the membranes scraped off and then be sliced. This took about 20 minutes, I wasn't too fussy about removing all the pith as I'd read it added to the succulency of the finished product, which made sense - the more pith, the more sugar could be soaked up.



Roughly following the recipe from Elise Bauer's Simply Recipes blog, I boiled all the peel 3 times draining in between.

See here for the recipe.

Recipe Costs

£0.00 665g left over citrus peel
£1.39 1.5kg sugar
£1.39 Total
£1.63 per kg of Candied Peel (50% of the cost at Tesco)

I choose to use the above recipe as it had a nice adaptable way of measuring the sugar syrup - using cups as a volume measure. It also gave me a chance to use one of these lovely measuring cups from Nigella Lawson.

I had 6 cups of peel, which wasn't too tightly packed, in hindsight I should probally have packed it in a bit more, as I ended up with way too much syrup. Having surplus did mean that I wasn't concerned about the pan catching or drying out. I do also now have a bottle of citrus flavoured sugar syrup, which makes a nice drink with fizzy water. I may be tempted to try a gin fizz this weekend.
In went the peel to the syrup.


After two and a half hours of simmering the peel had turned translucent, so I drained it and left it on racks before dusting with granulated sugar. I'll be letting it dry out in a large bowl for a few days before packing into jars.


This made a massive 850g of candied peel, which judging by the starting weight of peel means about a quarter of it is sugar. It should last a while, in an airtight jar apparently it's ok for up to a year. Now I just need something to do with it all before it gets nibbled away, time to get baking I feel.

Recipe Timings

1 hrs Preparation
0.5 hr Draining and Dusting
0.5 hr Potting

2.5 hrs Cooking
48 hr Drying

Taste Test

It tastes wonderful, initially sweet with a citrus bite afterward, with also a real difference between fruits. The lime could have done with being a bit softer - more boiling next time. Being able to cut the peel to size will be excellent when cooking with it.