Recipes from Le Tasting Room’s kitchen – Campari and orange cake

This is a rather Christmassy cake that serves 12 generously.Blood oranges can be hard to find in France and are very seasonal so I used normal oranges for my recipe and also freshly squeezed bottled orange juice for the syrup. The original recipe comes from Italian cookery book Polpo and uses blood oranges.

You will need:

The grated rind of 4 oranges (blood oranges if you can find them if not normal)

500ml freshly squeezed orange juice (you can use the juice from the 4 oranges and make it up to 500ml or do what I did and segment the oranges to serve alongside)

350g Greek yoghurt

600g caster sugar (300g for the cake and 300g for the syrup)

4 eggs lightly beaten

350g fine semolina

100g ground almonds

100mls Campari

250g unsalted butter, melted and cooled down

Method

• Preheat the oven to 170°C/Gas 3
• Finely grate the rind of the 4 oranges and put to one side
• Either squeeze the juice from the oranges and make up to 500ml or segment the oranges and measure out 500ml of orange juice
• Put the orange juice, Campari and 300g of caster sugar in a pan, bring to the boil and reduce to a rich syrup. This takes quite a long time and you need to keep your eye on it.
• While that is reducing, measure out the Greek yoghurt in a bowl, add 300g of caster sugar and the lightly beaten eggs. Stir in the cooled butter.
• Measure out the remaining dry ingredients (semolina, ground almonds) and then mix them in gently along with the orange rind. Pour into a buttered loose bottomed cake tin 23cm across.
• Bake in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Check it’s cooked through by using a skewer that should come out clean.
• Remove from the oven and while still warm, prick the cake all over with a long cocktail stick making lots of holes and then spoon the syrup over the cake. You have plenty of syrup so spoon lots over as it soaks in and then keep the rest for serving alongside

I served it with a 50/50 mixture of whipped cream and marscapone sweetened with a little icing sugar and grated orange rind. You could also serve it with a scoop of good quality vanilla ice cream.

Et voila! Bon appetit.