Eating cake for breakfast may seem like a wicked indulgence but just stop and think about it before you reach for packet cereals.  Fresh fruit cakes are often lower in sugar, they use real fats like butter of olive oil, eggs for protein and you can pack them full vitamins with fruits or pureed vegetables like carrot or beetroot.  Last year food trend spotters thought that cake for breakfast would be the ‘in thing’ by 2017. A number of studies  also suggested that so long as you don’t indulge in rich gateaux that breakfast cakes are better for you and set you up for the day ahead better than propriety cereals.  After all the Spanish have been doing it for generations  – think Magdalenas and Spanish coffee cake.

This clementine cake ticks all of the boxes;  it easy to make, it stores and freezes well and its delicious and refreshing. Clementine’s  are at their best for one more month until the end of February.

Clementine Breakfast Cake

Makes one loaf

Ingredients:

2 clementine, washed

175g softened salted butter

200g golden caster sugar

3 medium eggs

250g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

¼ teaspoon flaked salt

Optional – ½ teaspoon orange blossom water

 

Method:

Put the clementine into a pan and cover them with water. Boil gently with the lid on until they are soft and cooked through – about 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat leaving the clementine in the water to cool.

Halve the cooked and cooled clementine putting the pieces, skin and all into a blender jug. Blitz of mash until pureed.

Heat the oven to gas 3/170c. Lightly oil or line with a baking case a 1 litre loaf tin.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl or food processor. Beat in the eggs one at a time blending well. Mix in the clementine puree and the orange blossom water if using.

Blend the flours and both raising agents together and then fold gently in the batter to combine.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and tap the tin sharply on a resilient surface to settle the mixture. Put the cake tin onto a baking tray and into the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes until it is risen, golden and firm to touch.

Remove the cake from the oven and cool in the tin for about twenty minutes or so before removing it to a cooling tray.

Eat warm or cool and store in an airtight container.

Serving:

Serve for breakfast with butter and marmalade or with yoghurt and fresh fruits