Loaf Cake Learnings

After a recent Sunday night #lbloggers chat it came to light that many of us enjoy reading baking posts, and although it’s great to see a perfectly executed and presented bake sometimes it’s nice to read about the things that can (and do) go wrong. With this in mind I thought I’d post about the Orange, Almond and Yoghurt loaf cake that I baked at the weekend.

This cake was actually pretty delicious (recipe from Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days). It’s flavoured with orange zest and ground almonds, has a small amount of natural yogurt added to make it nice and moist, and ends up with a tasty crust and a top coated in flaked almonds. It’s the perfect thing for afternoon tea and cakes.

However, this was my first attempt at a loaf cake and I’ve learned a few things from this attempt.

• I greased and floured the tin – I like to think this contributed to the tasty crust!
• I probably overfilled the tin – next time I’d be better off with a bit of mixture over.
• I didn’t add enough orange zest. Silly me didn’t realise I needed a full tbsp of zest until it was too late and all I had was one orange. One orange does not generate a tbsp of zest! The orange flavour was still there in the cake, but it definately wouldn’t hurt to increase it!
• My stupid oven doesn’t do 170°C. As such I ended up overcooking the top and edges before the inside was even cooked. For future attempts I will go for the lower temperature 160°C for slightly longer, and if the top starts to catch cover it with a piece of foil. I acted too late this time, after the edges had already caught.

It was still pretty delicious though!