gluten free orange loaf cake

After a long week at work, all I wanted to do this weekend was sleep.  Even more excitingly, my boyfriend was away on Friday night which meant I could go to sleep early, luxuriate in having the whole bed to myself and get up whenever I wanted.  

And so it was with a heavy heart that I climbed into bed on Friday night and set the alarm for 8am.  I was sacrificing my longed for Saturday lie in to get up early and tackle my epic weekend to do list.  

The reason for the epicness of my to do list was the first visit of my boyfriend's parents to my our flat.  For him, their visit was a mild inconvenience getting in the way of his hangover from Friday night.  For me, it necessitated a military effort and seven hours of cleaning on a Saturday morning.  That is not to suggest that we don't keep the flat relatively clean and tidy.  In all honesty, I probably could have had a quick vacuum round and left it at that but my pride wouldn't let me stop until I'd cleaned every light switch and bleached everything in sight.  

Not only did a visit from the in-laws require a stupendous effort on the cleaning front but it did, of course, require cake too.  And, as my mother is a coaliac, a gluten free cake at that.  This is one of those brilliant recipes where you throw everything into a bowl, give it a bit of a stir and then pop it in the oven.  It really couldn't be any easier but the end result is more than a sum of its parts.

A word of advice - you will see that my cake has a sad little hole in the middle.  I lay the blame for this squarely at the door of the silicone loaf pan that I used which expanded sideways and caused the middle of the cake to cave in.  

Gluten free orange loaf cake

Adapted from BBC Good Food

For the cake:

140g unsalted butter, softened

200g gluten free plain flour

4 tsp gluten free baking powder*

1/2 tsp salt

200g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

6 tbsp milk

Zest of 1 large orange

For the topping:

3 tbsp orange juice

50g golden caster sugar

50g dark chocolate (optional)

1.  Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.  Butter and line a 1.2 litre loaf tin.  

2.  Put all of the cake ingredients into a big bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy; about 5 minutes.  Pour the batter into the tin and bake the cake for 45 minutes until golden brown.  

3.  As the cake finishes cooking, heat the orange juice and sugar in a saucepan until all the sugar is dissolved.  When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and spoon the orange syrup over the top.  Leave to cool in the tin before transferring to a wire rack.

4.  For the chocolate drizzle, melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and drizzle it over the cake with a fork.  

* This does seem like a lot I admit and was probably part of the reason for the expanding cake but you can use self-raising flour if wanted and reduce the amount of baking powder to 1 1/2 tsp.