This is the richest, moistest, butteriest (take a look at the ingredients!), and yet lightest orange cake I have ever come across. It’s the sort of cake that people just go completely silly about, and it’s ideal for big family get-togethers. It’s also dressy enough to serve as a dessert course, with a dollop of crème fraîche.

Ingredients
Feeds 10. Takes 1 hr 30 mins plus cooling time


500g butter
500g caster sugar
8 x 60g eggs
500g self-raising flour
200ml orange juice

For the icing

250g icing sugar
50ml orange juice

Heat the oven to 170C/Gas 3. You will need a 30cm-diameter cake tin with removable sides (the correct size is crucial), lined with non-stick silicone paper (Bakewell, for example), or well-greased with butter.

Cream the butter and sugar, until ribbons form. This will take quite a while – you are better off leaving the work to a processor.

Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Add the flour all at once, and beat well, then slowly add the orange juice, until it is incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, and bake for an hour and ten minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. (Slow is best, so don’t be afraid to cook it longer. If it starts to brown too much on the top, cover loosely with a sheet of buttered kitchen foil.) Leave the cake in the tin on a wire rack to cool, then gently remove the sides of the tin.

To make the icing, stir the orange juice into the icing sugar until you have the right spreading consistency (you may need a little more orange juice) and apply with a palette knife, allowing the icing to drip down the sides of the cake.

Leave the icing to set before cutting the cake into wedges. Store in an airtight container.

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