Recipe 198 – Maple Syrup Cake

I’m back!  After a lovely two weeks in sunny Cornwall, I feel completely chilled and it’s now back to baking and finishing the last 20 or so recipes I have remaining in the book.  I’m so looking forward now to baking from some other books, and believe me I have enough to bake from!!

This cake is from the first section of the book and it’s also my last bake from this section – ‘Classic Recipes’.  I had about half a bottle of maple syrup in the cupboard, so decided to use it up in baking this cake.  I must admit I’m not a huge fan of maple syrup in fact I loathe it, it’s far too sweet for me, but my husband loves it, so hopefully he’ll like this cake even if I don’t.

The oven was put on to preheat at Fan 140°C and a deep round 20cm (8″) cake tin was greased and the bottom lined with parchment.

I was pleased to see this was an all in one cake – it seemed a nice, easy way to get me back into baking…

Into a large bowl I weighed out 225g softened butter and to this I added 225g light muscovado sugar, 350g self-raising flour, 2 level teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 level tsp ground ginger, 4 large eggs, the grated rind of an orange and 100ml maple syrup.  I did think about mixing this by hand, but by now the bowl was virtually full so I retrieved my electric hand whisk from the cupboard and gave the mixture a good beat until it was nice and smooth.  There was one more thing to do before it went into the oven and that was to stir in 50g chopped pecan nuts.

The mixture was poured into the tin, the surface levelled and popped into the oven for 1-1.5 hours.  I set my timer for 1hr 15 mins , as I knew it would beep at me when there were 10 minutes left, so this would be just over the hour.  The cake actually baked for 1hr 20 minutes after which time it was a lovely golden brown and springy to the touch.  After leaving it in the tin for a few minutes, it was turned out, the parchment removed and left to cool on a wire rack.

Once cool it was time for the filling and topping.  Into a bowl went 450ml double cream.  This was whipped until it just held its shape (in all honesty I think I over-whipped it slightly!).  2tblsp maple syrup was added to the cream and folded in.  Luckily this was all I had left in the bottle!

With a long knife the cake was split into three horizontally.  The cream was used to both fill and cover the tops and side of the cake.  The finishing touch was to decorate the top with the shredded rind of an orange.

I must admit it did look stunning.  My husband was first to have a taste, he loved it and I must admit I thought it was a very tasty cake too!  In fact, I think the whole family liked it – it soon went!  This was quite a simple cake to make but it would certainly go down a treat for a birthday or tea party!

It was great to be back in my kitchen baking again, I really feel motivated now to finish the book!