Baking Subscription September

 

This is chocolate orange loaf, or as the subscription people would have it, chocolate orange jaffa loaf. It can't really be a 'jaffa cake' though as it doesn't have that jelly type layer between the cake and the chocolate top. 

It is however a lovely thing, up there with the lime and coconut loaf and like the lime and coconut loaf I suspect I will make it quite a lot. It's basically an orange drizzle cake, the sponge has some ground almond in it which gives it a nice flavour. When I do it again I'll probably just melt some Cadbury's milk chocolate on the top rather than faff about melting butter and dark chocolate chips and then beating in icing sugar, but there again if it were a special occasion I might do the more complicated thing. 

For those thinking it's sounding a bit simple, decorating wise, for my subscription, well spotted. You  were supposed to make your own candied orange peel to put on the top of the chocolate glaze. Those long term readers who remember my efforts at doing this previously when I attempted to recreate a St Clement's cake from the Bake Off will understand why that was never happening. I also managed, because I told myself that of course it didn't matter that my juicing thing didn't fit exactly on the top of my measuring jug, to send said jug flying when half full of orange juice, which promptly spread itself over a bench, down a set of drawer fronts and over more of the kitchen floor than anyone might have thought possible. Not fun. Unless you were watching, in which case it was probably very funny indeed!

Talking of Bake Off, it returned to our screens last evening and I was so pleased. That said I have already found one of the contestants annoying practically beyond all bearing and as they seem to be really rather good I suspect I am stuck with them for quite a long time, possibly all the way to the final. Curses! As usual while open mouthed at the ingenuity shown, I do rather wonder about the point of some of the 'showstopper challenges; last night, gravity defying cakes? I wouldn't know where to start. And if I did, could I be bothered? It's not that several of them weren't wonderful things, but I feel that at this point the show is well beyond looking for 'the best amateur baker' and into celebrating the semi-professional.