Sicilian Orange Cake or Muffin

I bake every Sunday no fail. It is imperative for me to bake because my little boy and I often bring the food to our respective work places to accompany us during tea break. :) And I love cooking on Sundays because I just love making my little boy happy...We also try to stay at home during Sundays so that we can recharge our batteries for the week days ahead of us.

And nothing can be more appropriate than this Sicilian Orange Cake, a favourite of one of my favourite food bloggers, Rima of bisousatoi.com. 

I went mad buying so many different paper cupcake cups a couple of weeks ago that it is high time for me to slowly deplete my supply, and so rather than bake a cake out of this beautiful orange cake recipe, I opted to make muffins instead. Same same but different!

True enough, an orange-y breeze wafted around the house, mesmerising and alluring...such is the Sicilian Orange Cake/Muffin.

*Adapted by http://www.bisousatoi.com/ and  http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2009/08/sicilian-

orange-cake.html

Ingredients

250g lightly salted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing

250g caster sugar

4 medium eggs

1 1/2 tsp finely grated orange zest

250 g self raising flour

85 ml freshly squeezed orange juice

For the icing:

125 g icing sugar

5 tsp freshly squeezed orange juice

Method

- Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line a 22-cm clip-sided round cake with non-stick baking paper (since I opted to use muffin paper cups, no greasing was done).

- Using an electric whisk, cream the butter and sugar together for 4-5 minutes until very pale. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating very well between each one, if necessary adding a spoonful of flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture from curdling. Beat in the orange zest. Add the flour all at once and mix in well, then slowly mix in the orange juice.

- Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 45-50 minutes (if you are doing cupcakes or muffins, bake for only 20 minutes, mini bundt cake for only 15-20 minutes) or until a skewer, inserted into the centre of the cake, comes out clean. If it starts to brown too quickly, cover loosely with a sheet of lightly buttered foil.

- Leave the cake, in its tin, to cool on a wire rack, then carefully remove the sides and base of the tin and peel off the paper. Put it onto a serving plate.

- For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in the orange juice until you have a spreadable consistency. Spread it over the top of the cake, letting it drip down the sides, and leave to set. Serve cut into slices, and store any leftovers in an airtight container.