Orange Buttermilk Cake

Originally, the buttermilk used in this cake was meant for my Mum's buttermilk fried chicken. But the long process of defrosting the chicken, soaking it in buttermilk for a day, as well as preparing the sides of mash potatoes, mac and cheese and cornbread kind of put us off making it - we obviously regretted that later on! The next problem we faced was what to do with the cartons of buttermilk in the fridge. Buttermilk has quite a decent shelf life, so we took our time deciding. Eventually, one carton expired. I couldn't let the other one suffer the same fate, I had to step in and use it in a baked good. I searched online for inspiration and decided to create a kind of pound cake complimented with the citrusy flavour of an orange to offer something fresh with each rich bite. So here's to you: buttermilk carton I couldn't save.

After turning the oven on to 150 degrees, I creamed very soft butter and sugar together in my stand-alone mixer until they were light in colour. While this was creaming, I prepared a 20cm cake tin by greasing it with butter and lining the bottom with parchment paper. 

With the mixer still on, I added in the eggs, making sure they were fully incorporated. The mixture became a lot looser with the addition of the eggs. Then I added in the carton of buttermilk, just pouring it all in.

Next, I had to do something I really don't like to do in baking (even if it is a good thing to do). I had to sift the flour into my batter. Sifting not only removes lumps in flour, but it ensures a light, airy cake. I wanted a light, airy cake, so I had to sacrifice a couple of minutes of sift 375g of plain flour.

As you can see, it lands on the batter like a fresh blanket of snow. So with the mixture on the lowest setting, the flour was folded into the batter along with baking powder and bicarbonate of soda which will help the cake rise.

When everything was mixed, I added in the zest of an orange and the juice of half of the orange. If you want a deeper orange flavour, you can add the zest of another orange and the juice of a whole orange.

All I had to do was mix this together and the cake batter was done! Really simple. I poured it into my prepared tin for it to be baked low and slow in the oven for an hour. 

After an hour I checked to see if the cake was ready with a toothpick. The toothpick didn't come out clean, so I put it back into the oven for five minutes. It was ready after that. If yours starts to get too brown on top after an hour, cover it with foil before putting it back for the extra five minutes. If it still isn't ready after five minutes, put it back in the oven, making sure to check after five minute intervals to be on the safe side.

This cake doesn't have glam and sparkle on the outside, but I thought it was gorgeous when it came out of the oven. It's like the orange came through in the colour to create a burnt-orange golden colour. We ate it while it was still warm and I think a dollop of sour cream would have made it an 11. The buttermilk makes it rich and moist, you have to try this out.

~ Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees

Ingredients:

• 225g Butter, softened
• 400g Caster Sugar
• 4 Eggs
• 300ml Buttermilk
• 375g Plain Flour
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
• Zest of 1 Orange 
• Juice of 1/2 an Orange