Allyson Gofton - Orange Drenched Summer Ring

Before the final days of summer disappear in autumn rains and winds, savour the last of the berries like boysenberries, blueberries and strawberries in this syrup drenched sweet yeast cake.

While the cake recipe requires yeast, there is no kneading, nor do you need to leave loads of time for proving.

It’s a rich batter-like dough that absorbs the orange syrup into every last crumb and holds its texture without falling to pieces. Delicious!

Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ¾ cup warm milk
• 1 teaspoon dried yeast or 1 tablespoon Surebake
• 4 eggs
• 125 grams butter, melted and cooled
• 2 punnets fresh berries
• icing sugar for dusting
• whipped cream to accompany

Syrup

• 2 cups caster sugar
• 2¼ cups water
• 1 vanilla pod or 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• ½ cup Grand Marnier or other orange-flavoured liqueur

Method

1. Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
2. Warm the milk to lukewarm. Stir in the yeast and set aside for 10-15 minutes or until it is very frothy.
3. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the yeast mixture and the eggs.
4. Use your hands to blend the ingredients into a batter and then continue to beat the dough with your hands until the batter is shiny. This will take about 10 minutes.
5. Add the butter and beat a further 3 minutes. (Sit the bowl on its side on a bench to make sure you can beat the batter welll).
6. Pour the batter into a well-greased and floured 23cm ring tin. Set aside in a warm place for about 1 hour until the batter has doubled in bulk.
7. Bake at 190ºC for about 25 minutes until the dough is cooked when tested with a skewer.
8. Remove from the oven and allow to stand for 5 minutes.
9. Loosen the cake from the tin and then pour half the syrup over the cake. Stand 10 minutes and repeat with remaining syrup. Set aside to cool.
10. Invert the cooled syrup-saturated cake onto a cake plate to serve. Fill the centre with fresh berries and dust with icing sugar. Serve a bowl of whipped cream on the side.

Syrup

1. Put the sugar, water and vanilla pod or essence into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer 5 minutes.
2. Remove the vanill apod if using and stir in the liqueur.

Cooks Tips

- Beating the mixture by hand may seem odd, but in reality it produces an excellent finished product. A food processor will get clogged up under the blade and stop. A wooden spoon tends not to be able to take the pressure. Use only one hand and keep the other clean for grabbing things.
- If you do not have Grand Marnier, use whatever you have on hand. If I'm having berry fruits, I may try a berry liqueur. If using apricots or peaches, try an orange liqueur. Lemon juice is very nice in place of alcohol.