This recipe is from Christall Lowe’s cookbook Kai. The kūmara one of the most significant crops for Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. It is a variety of sweet potato, with either red, purple or orange flesh. North American sweet potato is a fine substitute. Combined with oranges it makes a moist, luscious cake, delicious on its own or served with toffee sauce and ice cream. Says Christall, “As a one-bowl, easy-mix cake, you’ll be whipping this up often!”
Ingredients
- All-Purpose Flour 1 cup
- Wholemeal Flour 1 cup
- Baking Soda 2 tsp
- Mixed Spice 2 tsp
- Brown Sugar ½ cup, firmly packed
- White Sugar ½ cup
- Orange Kūmara peeled, grated, 2 cups (approx. 2 medium)
- Eggs 4
- Canola or Rice Bran Oil 1 cup
- Seedless Oranges 2 medium, peeled and blended to a purée (leave the skin on ½ an orange for a more zesty flavour)
Orange Toffee Sauce
- Caster Sugar 1 cup
- Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice 1/3 cup
- Cream 1/3 cup
Cook It
- Heat the oven to 160°C. Grease and line a medium rectangular cake tin (approx. 23 x 33cm).
- In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients, including kūmara, aerating with your hands.
- Add the wet ingredients to dry and mix with an electric beater on low for 1 minute.
- Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, and bake for 45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.
- While the cake cooks, make the orange toffee sauce. Place the sugar and orange juice in a medium saucepan and stir to combine. Cook the mixture over a medium heat, without stirring, swirling the pan every now and then, until a light caramel colour, about 8 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and carefully add cream (take care here as the mixture will bubble vigorously), then return to low heat and stir until smooth.
- When the cake is cooked, leave to rest in the tin for 10 minutes before slicing and serving warm, smothered in orange toffee sauce and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
