My Nan's St. Clement's Cake

Have you ever been so busy you don't know whether you're coming or going?  Welcome to my life the last few weeks!  I've decided to cut myself a break and just keep going forward with my goal.  I don't want to stop now!


This cake turned out so yummy!  I've never attempted any sort of sponge cake, much less ever eaten one so I really didn't know what to expect.  The ground up almonds really made this cake extra good!

This recipe called for caster sugar.  Caster sugar?  Caster oil I've heard of but never caster sugar.  ochef.com's answer: Castor or caster sugar is the name of a very fine sugar in Britain, so named because the grains are small enough to fit though a sugar "caster" or sprinkler. It is sold as "superfine" sugar in the United States.  I did wind up finding some super fine baker's sugar at the store so I figured I should be all set.


Cream together the butter and white sugar until totally smooth.  This was a cinch with the super fine sugar!  Add 4 eggs one at a time and beat really well in between each.  Add some of the orange zest and lemon zest to the bowl and let that mix in.  Add the ground almonds (basically throw almonds into a food processor until it becomes a meal) and flour to the bowl and let that mix until blended.  Pour into a greased spring form pan and whack that in the oven for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

Juice the zested orange and put that into a sauce pan with some sugar.  Keep on low heat until the sugar is dissolved and you have a simple syrup.  Poke a bunch of little holes in the cake and pour the orange syrup over it.  The cake will totally absorb this and will give it the most fantastic smell, taste, moistness.... really just everything!  The picture below shows how glossy the cake becomes from the syrup being poured over it.  Yummo!
  

Confession: In an attempt to be precise with the measurements for this cake my Mom and I looked up online the conversions from grams to cups for each ingredient.  We accidentally used too much sugar in the cake so it's a little sunken in the middle!!  Oopsy!


For the icing:  Juice the zested lemon and add to a bowl with powdered sugar and give it a stir.... that's it.  And it was so stinking good!  It had just enough sweetness to it to avoid the lemon pledge being sprayed on top of this cake visual you have in your head (or at least do now! haha).  Allow the cake to cool completely and transfer to a serving plate before spreading the icing.  Garnish with some reserved lemon and orange zest and serve that baby up!

I made this cake again by popular demand and used the correct amount of sugar.  The picture above is the non-sinkhole cake!


Warning:  this cake is very addicting.  Step away.... at least from my piece!  Or half... haha!