Paddington Cake

This was chosen by Cafe Direct for their recipe of the month and also appears in The Return of the Cake Scoffer. The flavours are based on the taste of Green and Black's Maya Gold chocolate.

Paddington Cake - a chocolate orange layered sponge with a secret ingredient!

Ingredients (+ also see frosting ingredients below)

1+1/2 cups of plain flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1+1/2 cups of soy or rice milk

1/2 cup of sunflower oil

1/2 cup of orange marmalade

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1+1/4 cups of caster sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F/180 C. Grease and line the bottom of 2 round cake pans with baking paper or you could make a rectangular cake in a loaf tin ( you would need to cut the cake in half lengthways when cooled and sandwich the halves together).

Sieve the first 6 ingredients together and mix. In a separate bowl and using an electric whisk combine the rest of the ingredients. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Divide between the 2 baking pans or fill the loaf tin and bake for 40-45 mins until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans.

Sandwich together with the following filling.

Orange fudge frosting: (use half for the middle and half for the top of the cake)

1/4 cup of sunflower margarine (Suma, Pure etc)

3 tablespoons of marmalade

1 teaspoon of orange liqueur (Eg.Triple sec or Cointreau)

2 cups of sieved icing sugar

Put the margarine and marmalade in a pan and melt over a gentle heat. Once melted remove from the heat and stir in the orange liqueur. Stir in the icing sugar. Once the mixture is cool use half to sandwich the cake together and half for the top.


Recipe by Caroline Turner