The Great Bloggers Bake Off - week 5 - Cinnamon & Orange Traybake

It's that time of the week again for Great British bake Off and this week saw the bakers making their signature traybakes, technical Tuiles and biscuit towers.

Traybakes - these could take the form of Brownies, Blondies, Rocky Road...and can be biscuits, cake or pastry - in a square or rectangular tin, and all cut into equal pieces (hmm that's the tricky part!). I must say I did love the sound of Frances' Millionaire's Banoffee Bonus, yummy!

Tuiles - something that I've never made, apparently named after a French roof tile and is a very thin biscuit which is crisp and delicate.

Biscuit towers - at least 30cm high and take any form...but importantly it needs to be look good and stand securely (Frances take note.....).

I opted to make a cake, baked in a tray, with some frosting slapped on the top..job done.

This recipe was adapted from a delicious courgette, thyme & lemon drizzle cake recipe from Katie at Feeding boys and a firefighter. I first tried out the recipe last week after being given some rather large yellow courgettes by a friend. I left out the thyme and topped the cake with a lemon mascarpone frosting and it was absolutely delicious.

This time I thought I would mix the flavours up a bit and used orange and cinnamon in the place of the lemon. I also tripled the quantity as I was using a larger baking tin.

Cinnamon & Orange Traybake

600g yellow courgette, grated
450g caster sugar
3 eggs
375ml vegetable oil
juice of 1 orange & zest of 3
600g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
4 tsp cinnamon

juice of 2 oranges
75g caster sugar
250g mascarpone
1 tsp cinnamon

• Mix the courgette, sugar, eggs, oil, all the orange zest & juice of 1 orange together until well combined
• Mix together the flour, salt bicarbonate of soda, baking powder & cinnamon
• Stir the dry ingredients into the wet & mix well
• Pour mixture into a large shallow baking tin (I used a 13" x 9" Baking tin)
• Bake in a 170C oven for approx 45 minutes
• Leave to cool in the tin
• Meanwhile make a syrup with the juice of the remaining 2 oranges and the caster sugar
• Bring to the boil & simmer for 5 minutes
• Once the cake is cool prick holes in it all over with a fork
• Drizzle the cake with half of the orange syrup & mix the remainder with the mascarpone and cinnamon
• Spread the mascarpone over the cake 

So to recap on the themes for the week :

Traybakes
Tuiles
Biscuit towers 

Now go forth and bake.......

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