'Spruced' up Vanilla Cake - Forever Nigella

I was wondering what I could make to use my star shaped mould (well, I need to use it when I can, and Christmas is definitely that time!) and looked back through my archives to see what I had done with it last time. You can see the results here.

Because it was so successful, I decided to repeat the cake pretty much the same as last time. It then occurred to me that with a Nigella recipe in a Nigella-esque type cake tin, and with it fitting the Christmas theme, this would be perfect to enter Forever Nigella this month, hosted by Sarah from the lovely Maison Cupcake blog. The theme this month is Christmas Presence, and you can find the announcement post with rules and so forth here. Sarah has also promised that Forever Nigella will be making a reappearance in the new year in a new format - looking forward to finding out what that might be!

I have made some changes to the recipe, and will write out what I did in my own words, so hopefully not contravening the challenge rules. You can also find the recipe here, on the BBC Food website, or here on Nigella's own website.

Mine obviously isn't 'spruced' up, but a starry/snowflake version is lovely and festive too!

Starry clementine cake
Ingredients
75g butter
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
120g plain flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
85g fat-free greek yogurt
1 1/2tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 clementine

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C. Grease your tin very well. I actually didn't grease mine at all - it's still very new and the non-stick seems to be working well so I chanced it. I think a spray would be easiest for greasing with as the shape is so intricate.

- Cream together the butter and sugar.

- Add the eggs, with a spoonful of the flour to stop it curdling.

- Add the remaining flour, bicarbonate of soda, yogurt, vanilla and clementine zest and stir well to combine.

- Pour/spoon into the mould and bake for 35-40 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

I was lucky that my cake didn't stick at all, and turned out beautifully. The thing that amazes me about this cake is that it rises at all - the flour is plain flour, and there is only 1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda in there, but I suppose that's all that is needed in combination with the acidic yogurt.

Rudolph is getting all over the place isn't he! This is a truly delicious cake - really moist, buttery and slightly dense, but in the best possible way. The clementine flavour was slightly subtle, but definitely there, really delicious. I can understand why Nigella recommends this toasted and buttered for breakfast on Christmas day - a true Christmas treat, and I think Nigella would approve of my addition of clementine zest to add a little more Christmas zing to this delectable treat!