Orange Gateau

I have been postponing to update my blog…Wanted a good recipe for my 50th post…And yaayyyy today happened to be my b’day and what better reason to bake a cake. Lots of choices..do I make a black forest cake… that happens to be hub’s best ever….then i thought why not try something with oranges.. they are lying in my pantry for quite sometime. So I started my search for a basic sponge cake. I found it in Suma’s blog . She has some very good collections and been one of my inspirations for home-bakers recently. So I tweaked it a little bit and then started my journey.

1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
4 large eggs
3/4 cup oil
2 teaspoon Baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Orange rind for a big orange or 2 if its small

For the filling:
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup water and 3 teaspoon sugar (Heat a little until sugar dissolves. Mix with orange juice and refrigerate)

For cream:
3-4 cups whipped cream (Ahhh..I’m lucky to get ready-made whipped cream)
Juice from 1/2 orange (Mix with whipped cream and refrigerate. Just blend with cream else it will become too runny)

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F.
1. Mix flour, baking powder and corn starch, sieve twice and keep aside.
2. In a mixing bowl beat eggs until it triples in volume and starts giving froth. Add essence and orange rind and keep beating.
3. Add sugar and beat until it becomes nice and creamy.
4. Keep adding oil and beating simultaneously.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients gently. Do not over mix. Use a spatula and mix in “8” movement.
6. Grease your baking dish and pour the batter gently. Tap on the counter top for the bubbles to settle down. This should give a flat cake, but mine did rise well.
7. If using a glass dish for baking, bake for 40-45 mins. For a normal tin, 25-30 mins should suffice.

Once cooked, remove from oven and let cool in the dish completely. Gently tap and the cake will fall off. Use a sharp long knife and cut into 3 sections or 2. I cut mine into 2 and the soaking didn’t pass through the entire cake. So 3 should make the magic.

Now, soak the cake layers for few seconds in the orange juice. Or, even better use a spoon and sprinkle evenly and generously on the cake layers. For the top layer, soak from top as well.

Then, take the whipped cream, and start coating each layer generously, leaving 1/2 gap on the edges. Assemble the cake, one layer cake, then cream, cake, cream, cake and finally use the rest of cream to cover the entire cake. Mine didn’t look professional, but it did taste fantastic 🙂

Decorate as per your taste, and refrigerate overnight for the flavors to blend well and soak in the cake.