Bread Machine Recipes: Marmalade Citrus Cake

I've been holding out on you. I made this cake on Sunday and have been meaning to post about it as it was such a success. I would have posted it after I made it but we ended up taking to a friends house (and came back with half a slice) where it was greatly received. We then went out that night and didn't get back until late. Then I was out on Monday and yesterday I was busy with house stuff. There are no excuses left, this has to be posted.

I decided that I'd like to try to make a cake in my bread machine. It's about the only thing I haven't tried (apart from jam but I'm not sure I'd do that in my bread machine as it has no instruction manual!) and I'd found a recipe for a Quick Marmalade Citrus cake in my go to bread machine book One Hundred Bread Machine Recipes by Vicki Smallwood (ISBN: 1856057135).

It was simple but could have been simpler if I'd had a cake setting on my machine. I thought I did but by the time I found that I didn't, it was a bit late. All the ingredients were in the pan and it was ready to go... I have a "bake" setting (sounds like cake) but it doesn't mix so I had to improvise. I mixed it on the Rapido setting and once it was all combined, I switched the machine off and set it to bake. It took and hour and came out beautifully, it was moist and dense and the citrus flavour was lovely. The smell was amazing. Next time, I'll mix everything thoroughly and then put it in the machine, I'll also choose the "light" crust setting as I didn't think to check it (hence the slightly dark exterior).

Here is the recipe that I made (I used grapefruit instead of lime as that's what I had in the house)

Ingredients
6tbsp marmalade
110g (4oz) butter
1 orange
1 lemon
1/2 red grapefruit (you can use any citrus)
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Place butter and marmalade in a saucepan and heat gently until melted (stir occasionally). Set aside to cool.
Finely grate the zest of the citrus fruits into a mixing bowl, add the butter and marmalade mixture and eggs and beat until thoroughly combined. Add the juice of the lemon, half of the orange and grapefruit and beat again. Pour the mixture into the baking pan of your bread machine.
Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarboinate of soda and add to the baking pan.
Set the program to "CAKE." Check that all ingredients are mixing thoroughly about halfway through the mixing cycle. Once baked, turn out onto a wire rack to cool.