G’day, how are you all?  We are on the second day of Spring here on the beaches.  And it’s raining.

Now, one of the things I collect, ahem along with a whole lotta cr*pola is old cookery books, I just love to flip through them late at night…for sure they are full of entertainment.

So, A Medley of Recipes is one that I have found interesting and amusing.  Written by Dorothy Allhusen and published in 1936, published in Henrietta St, a  street I passed many a time on my way to work all those years ago.   If you know Elizabeth David, it is of the same kind of feel, only years earlier and full of such delights as ‘A Doctor’s Recipe for Beef Tea’, instructions on how to sour milk by leaving it in a warm cupboard, and bizarrely recipes for how to ‘take stains out of marble’, ‘dye a gown’ and ‘sweeten rancid butter’.  I almost expected to see a compound on how to mix beachy white paint.  There is not a single picture in this book, so very different to the highly styled, lifestyle books of today..

Anyway, in that book was a recipe for Orange Cake, contributed to this publication by Lady Congreve, no less…now I’d also seen something similar in the Donna Hay Season’s book (don’t forget the giveaway open til close of play Friday) …and of course Donna’s version, not only ridiculously easy, positively enveloped in the splendour that is, Donna Hay Styling seemed to illustrate my idea of an orange cake perfectly. 

So, then, in a fit of domestic glee I found myself mixing and folding, and if you’ve been with me for a while you’ll know that baking ain’t my thing.  Baby. 

And unbelievably for me, as one who regularly ends up with burnt or sunken offerings in the baking department, this actually worked, save the odd crumbling to the edges that needed fixing. 

The recipe :  4 eggs 1 cup sugar  1 tsp vanilla  1 cup sr flour 150g butter 1 cup ground almonds (plus I threw in half a pack of poppy seeds)     for topping : 1 cup caster sugar 1/2 cup water 2 oranges sliced.   Topping : sugar, water, vanilla in pan over medium heat until sugar dissolves, add orange for 10/15 mins simmer.  Eggs Sugar and vanilla in bowl, mix until thick & pale, sift over flour and fold through.  Fold through butter and almond. Put orange mix in bottom of tin. Pour cake mixture over orange and bake for 45 mins .

Verdict :  Delicious

Though, there has been a lot of debate in this old cottage about this cake, because as a non-cake lover, I am loving it…and Mr BC who considers himself severely hard-done by because I am not a baker doesn’t like it one bit.  And he is one who eats cake with beer. 

Now onto more exciting things.  Like the cake stand.  Isn’t it yum-scrum?

I found this while treasure hunting on our recent holiday up the coast.  It was a Vinnies special, I love me a bit of silver with all the white. 

OK that’s it from me, I am off to work on things for the BC Store…and I am working in a project that involves zinc not white paint…more to come soon.

Don’t forget if you want to win the Donna Hay Seasons book giveaway…just comment on this post, tell me what you think of my baking or even send me foolproof baking schemes.  This girl is on a roll!  Closes end of play Friday. 

See ya

 BC Store Opening Shortly