Orange Loaf Cake

    Who doesn't love the fresh smell and taste of citruses, of their sweet and sour juice or their volatile oil hidden in the zest? This magic fruits serve de basis for an amazing dessert, the loaf cake, spongy, soft, fluffy and moist. The main star today is the orange, which for me has the perfect balance between sweet and sour. (I might have also chosen orange because a good friend of mine had an intense craving for this dessert and used to mention it to me daily for a while).  If I've already captured your attention and you're wondering what you have to do in order to get this cake, don't worry, you just have to keep adding and adding orange at every step, and there will still not be enough. So let's preheat our ovens and star baking.

 Ingredients:

• 115 g soft butter
• 250 g flour
• 100 g sugar
• 1 vanilla bean
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 2 large eggs
• 100 ml orange juice
• 5 ml cognac 
• 2 Tbsp. orange zest
• 1 Tbsp. lemon zest

Extra:

• some more orange juice+ orange zest
• powder sugar

!! I recommend using organic oranges and lemons for this recipe because they are not chemically treated. Search in your local supermarket for citruses that have their zest suitable for consumption.

    I prepared the dough by separately mixing the dry and the wet ingredients and the combining them. First, with the help of a mixer I beat the butter together with the sugar until the sugar dissolved and the mixture got creamy. Afterwards I added the eggs, one by one, mixing continuously. When the eggs were incorporated I added all the other wet ingredients: the orange juice and zest, lemon zest, cognac and the vanilla from one bean and I mixed until fully homogeneous.

    In a separate bowl I mixed the flour together with the baking powder and salt. I gradually incorporated the flour mixture into the wet one and poured everything in a loaf tray. If you are using a silicone tray I suggest greasing it with some butter before pouring the mixture and If you are using a tin one also cover it with some baking paper after greasing it, in this is way you will remove the cake easily and you don't risk tearing it apart. 

Final mixture in the loaf tray

    After this essential step I baked the cake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven at 180 Celsius/ 4 on gas. The cake is ready when it reached a golden-brown color and the top is cracked, like you can see in the picture below.  You can also check it by inserting a toothpick which should come out completely clean when the cake is done. 
 

Cooling down the baked cake

    After the cake was baked I took it out of the oven, letting it to partially cool down. While is was still warm (not hot) I poured some orange juice over it in order to make it moist. The rule for this soaking process in quite easy to remember: if the cake is warm, then the liquid used to make it moist has to be cold and if the cake is cold them the liquid has to be warm. Finally, I let it completely cool down and I glazed it with some orange icing which I made by mixing powder sugar with some orange juice until I got a thick and creamy consistence. Feel free to pour as much icing as you want :). I sprinkled some orange zest, I let the cake chill in order for the icing to thicken and then I dug in. 

Glaze

Enjoy!