Sunday 31 March 2013

Sticky Marmalade Loaf

This all-in-one loaf is taken from a little Good Food (BBC books) recipe book - 101 Cakes and Bakes. The original recipe calls this a tea-loaf, but it doesn't fit what I consider to be a tea-loaf, so I'm just calling it a loaf. For me, a tea-loaf is a drier cake, with reduced quantities of fat and sugar, which makes it more like a scone in texture; slices are usually buttered before eating. 

To make this cake, the ingredients are all beaten together until smooth, except for 1 tablespoon of the marmalade which is warmed and brushed onto the still-hot cake as a glaze, and 25g of the halved pecans which are sprinkled over the top of the cake before baking. I made a slight change to the recipe, substituting the pecan nuts with sultanas, as FB doesn't eat pecans and I've been baking a lot with other nuts recently. I used 75g sultanas in the cake and just the marmalade glaze on top. The loaf, in a 2lb tin, takes about 75 minutes to bake at 180C, but needs covering loosely with foil halfway through the baking time.

Ingredients - 140g thick-cut marmalade, 175g softenend butter, 175g light brown sugar, 3 beaten eggs, 225g SR flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 teaspoon mixed spice, 100g halved pecans.

My initial reaction to the loaf was that it wasn't very orange-y, and that it would be better with the fresh zest of an orange added, but as I ate more, I began to appreciate the subtle flavour produced by the combination of the spicing and the marmalade, and decided it didn't really need the orange zest, unless one particularly wanted the orange flavour to be more dominant.

I tried to find this recipe online, as I prefer to give links rather than copy out a recipe which might be copyrighted, and once again I was surprised by how many bloggers are prepared to write out recipes as if they were original to them, or make slight alterations but fail to acknowledge the original recipe. To me, changing the marmalade to ginger marmalade, or using sultanas instead of pecans, as I did, doesn't mean you can claim the basic recipe as your own - but I do know views differ on this!

2 comments:

Caroline said...

It looks rather delicious. I hadn't thought to substitute the pecans with sultanas, but that would be perfect. I love marmalade cakes.

Katie said...

Looks a lovely loaf. I think your sultanas would go better with the marmalade than the pecans. Good call.
I agree tea loaves should have actual tea in them.