Cream Cake With Orange Marmalade Filling

That too-runny marmalade is turning out to be perfect for filling cakes, pancakes, and the like. I see some vanilla ice cream in my weekend.

The last cream cake I made had the cream whipped first. This is more straightforward, and was so simple a six year old can toss it together first thing in the morning-which is basically what he did. The frosting is a bit trickier, but still, you don't need to possess any great skill to manage it successfully, which is great because I'm not at my best of late.

These cakes are a fantastic way to use up heavy cream nearing the expiration date, but they are also very fast to make as you don't have to stand and cream butter and sugar together. Those few minutes less holding a hand mixer might not seem like much most days, but when it does...well, just remember this easy cake.

I pretty much followed the recipe in the Betty Crocker picture Cookbook, 1950 for both the cake and frosting. The filling is orange marmalade, but obviously anything would work. I did double the amount of vanilla in the recipe to create a sort of "orange sherbet" flavour, but I think it came up closer to orange salt water taffy. Not exactly what I was aiming for, but still pretty good.


For The Cake:

Grease and flour two 9 inch pans Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. If you have a six year old sitting around moping about studying maths-hand said child the cookbook and tell the sullen one to get to work baking you a cake.


3 large eggs
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
2 1/3 cups sifted cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 -2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Beat the eggs until thick. Gradually add the sugar until it is incorporated. Sift dry ingredients together. Mix vanilla with cream. Add in alternating additions ending with cream. Pour into prepared pans and bake 25-30 minutes. Cool in pan on rack 5 minutes, then cool completely on rack. Trim cakes level. Fill with orange marmalade. Frost as follows:

1/2 cup butter melted in saucepan. Remove from heat. Beat in 2 1/2 tablespoons AP flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Return to medium heat, whisk in 1/2 cup milk. bring to a boil and cook 1 minute. Remove from heat, beat in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/2 teaspoon orange extract. Whisk in 3 cups icing sugar. Remove to a bowl and with an electric mixer, beat on high until cool, and frosting thickens enough to spread. I like to frost cakes on a rack over a baking sheet and then transfer it to a plate, but do what works best for you.

Decorate your cake-no really, you have to. That's the etiquette. *Shrugs*.