Yellow Cake w/ Vanilla Blood Orange Marmalade Glaze

It was a pretty busy weekend filled with baking and hard work. I baked those delicious cookies for the PB Garden meeting on Saturday, and I baked an olive oil yellow cake with a vanilla bean blood orange marmalade glaze for my NC Garden comrade, Aly.

I had originally planned on baking cookies for her birthday celebration at the garden, but by the time I got home it was already 10pm. So I thought I'd do something low key and just bake her a cake. I had a box of yellow cake in the pantry for Ken D's famous Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler, so I pulled that out and using my freshly harvested chicken eggs and a 1/3 cup of olive oil I baked the cake.

While the cake was baking I thought about how to dress it up. A few months ago Mystery K sent me a picture of an olive oil yellow cake with an orange syrup glaze and I decided to try making that. I've been pretty excited to see how my batch of marmalade turned out so I popped open a jar of my vanilla blood orange marmalade. (Mmm it was soo good!) Sweet, fragrant, slightly tarty with a nice light vanilla flavor.

I added a table spoon of brandy to a pint of the marmalade, microwaved it for 30 seconds and let it liquify a bit. When the cake came out of the oven I began drizzling the liquid on top. I let the entire cake coat in the sweet delicious magic then let the cake cool over night. In the morning I gave it another coating of marmalade and heaped all the pulp and rinds on top of the cake.

I couldn't get a really good picture, but the bright orange/red looked stunning out in the sun. Tasted fabulous too! I'm definitely going to try this again. For those at home who'd like to make this I think I've got an easier version for you (without the trouble of making your own marmalade.)

Get a store bought orange marmalade made with sugar, not corn syrup. Add a splash (1 tablespoon or to taste) of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of a dark wildflower honey, 1 tablespoon of brandy, 1/2 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon of vanilla and mix it all up. Microwave the concoction for 30 minutes to make it runny then baste your cake with it.