Stranger Foods

Tessa’s spice cake

Serves 12 | Prep 20 mins | Cook 55 mins

This is a simple spiced pound cake, but one that is seriously moist, with a lovely fine crumb. There’s enough going on, spice-wise, that we’ve restrained ourselves when it comes to an icing and left it unadorned.

Source: SWEET by Ottolenghi

Ingredients

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Imperial

x0.5

180 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
160 g soft dark brown sugar
160 g soft light brown sugar
finely grated zest of 1 large orange
3 large eggs
120 g soured cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp mixed spice
225 g plain flour
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp malt vinegar, or apple cider vinegar
icing sugar, for dusting

Instructions

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Preheat the oven to 170°C/Gas 5. Grease a regular 900 g loaf tin and line with baking parchment, then set aside.
Place the butter, brown sugars and orange zest in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment in place. Cream until lightened and smooth but not too fluffy: you don’t want to aerate the cake too much.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs by hand. Add the soured cream and vanilla and whisk again until smooth.
Sift the mixed spice, flour and salt together into a separate bowl and set aside.
In alternate batches, and with the machine on a medium-low speed, add a third of the egg and soured cream mixture to the creamed mix, followed by a third of the sifted dry ingredients. Continue with the second and third batch, continuing to mix until combined. Stir the bicarbonate of soda with the vinegar in a small bowl: it will fizz up a little, but that’s fine. Add this to the mixture and as soon as everything is combined, turn off the machine. Don’t worry if the mixture starts to split at this point: it will still cook up well. Scrape the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for , or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the oven on to a wire rack for about to cool slightly before inverting on to a cake plate. Set aside until completely cool, then dust with icing sugar. This cake is best served at room temperature, as the flavour of the spice becomes more pronounced.

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