Blood orange drizzle cake

Ingredients

225g very soft unsalted butter, plus extra to grease
225g self-raising flour
1 rounded tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar
4 large eggs
finely grated zest of 2 blood oranges
1 blood orange, sliced, to decorate (optional)

For the drizzle

75g icing sugar
50g caster sugar
juice of 2 blood oranges (from above)

For the curd

mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">3 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

grated zest and juice of 2 blood oranges

2 tbsp lemon juice

100g golden caster sugar

100g soft unsalted butter, diced

2 tsp cornflour

Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4. Grease and base-line a deep 20cm round cake tin.
Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the baking powder, sugar, butter, eggs, zest and a pinch of salt. Whisk together using an electric hand whisk. Spoon the mixture into the cake tin; bake for 45 minutes until firm and springy, and a skewer comes out clean.
While the cake is baking, for the drizzle, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in the caster sugar, then gradually stir in the blood orange juice. Set aside – don’t worry if there are a few tiny lumps, they will soon dissolve.
For the curd, put the eggs and yolks into a medium saucepan and whisk for 30 seconds to combine. Add the rest of the curd ingredients and gently stir together over a low heat. As soon as the butter has melted, switch to a whisk and whisk constantly until the curd has thickened. This can take up to 10 minutes – don’t turn up the heat! Pass through a sieve into a bowl, cover and leave to cool. Chill for at least 4 hours.
When the cake is cooked, make lots of small holes over the surface using a skewer. Spoon the drizzle over the warm cake and leave to cool in the tin.
Loosen the cake using a cutlery knife. Remove it to a board; using a serrated knife, carefully slice it horizontally into 3 layers. Spread half of the chilled curd onto the cut surface of the bottom slice; top with the middle layer and spread the other half of the curd on top of that, then add the top layer. If not serving immediately, chill, then bring back to room temperature a couple of hours before serving. Decorate with extra orange slices, if you like.