The One-Step Citrus Cake You’ll Bake All Winter Long
For Yasmin Khan, the daughter of an Iranian mother and a Pakistani father, food has always been connected to identity.
“The dishes my parents cooked when I was a child comforted as much as they nourished,” she writes in the introduction to her new book, Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories from the Eastern Mediterranean.
“Their recipes provided answers to the questions of where we were from and what values we held close to us. They told the story of my ancestors, who travelled from Kashmir to Punjab, from Gilan to London and California, and grew fields of rice, and pickled bulbs of garlic, and simmered quince in cardamom and rose water to eat for breakfast with toasted bread and clotted cream.”
Questions of identity and values are central in the Eastern Mediterranean, where an estimated five million refugees have come through Turkey, Greece and Cyprus in the last five years. Yasmin writes that migration, and how we deal with it, is one of key issues of our times.
“How, in the 21st century, do we deal with the fact that humans have always needed to move and always will move? And how can we update our narrative and our concepts of borders, states and identity so that people can live, and move, in peace and dignity?”
To explore the issue, Yasmin travelled through Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, “a journey through clay-red soils, air that carries the fragrance of orange blossom and thyme, and hundreds of conversations over small cups of dense and sweet black coffee”. Ripe Figs contains stories and recipes inspired by those travels, including this easy-as citrus cake that requires just one step before you slide it into the oven.
Citrus Cake
225g softened unsalted butter,
plus more to grease the tins
225g self-raising flour
200g caster sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp full-fat natural yogurt
2 tbsp finely grated unwaxed orange zest
2 tbsp orange juice
Frosting
80g icing sugar
350g full-fat cream cheese
4 tbsp full-fat yoghurt
1 tbsp orange juice
2 tbsp lemon juice
finely grated orange and
unwaxed lemon zest, to serve
Preheat the oven to 180C fan-forced (160C conventional/Gas 4). Butter 2 x 20cm sandwich cake tins and line the bases with baking paper.
Place all the ingredients for the cake together in a large bowl and beat for a couple of minutes until just blended.
Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared tins. Bake for 20–25 minutes or until lightly golden. Leave the cakes to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack.
To make the frosting, mix together the icing sugar, cream cheese, yoghurt, orange and lemon juices and whisk until smooth. Place this in the refrigerator to chill and firm while the cake cools.
When the cake is completely cool, use a palette knife to spread half the frosting on one cake. Place the other on top and ice with the rest of the frosting. Finish by decorating with a scattering of orange and lemon zests.
