BUTTER UP

Homeland pastry chef Petra Galler's first cookbook Butter, Butter serves up classics with a European twist

Blood orange and hazelnut cake

The blood orange season is short and sweet, so every time it comes around I pounce on them. I mean, how beautiful are these creatures? The colours are so spectacular and vibrant, it's sometimes hard to believe that they are natural. The small amount of polenta in the batter brings a gorgeous texture to the crumb of this cake, and the combination of yoghurt and ground hazelnuts ensures the moisture is kept in and the shelf life is long - winwin. If you can't get your hands on any blood oranges, regular oranges will suffice. I've also hade this using mandarins, which, I must say, could rival the original.

SERVES 12-14 GENEROUSLY

INGREDIENTS

• 300g unsalted butter, softened
• 400g caster sugar Zest and juice of 2 lemons and 2 blood oranges
• 6 eggs
• 125g thick Greek yoghurt, plus extra to serve
• 255g hazelnut meal
• 165g fine polenta
• 150g plain or gluten-free flour
• 1 tsp flaky salt

BLOOD ORANGE TOPPING

• 1 cup caster sugar
• 125ml blood orange juice
• 5-6 blood oranges, unpeeled, thinly sliced and seeds discarded

1 Preheat the oven to 160°C fan bake. Grease and line a 25cm cake tin.

2 Wrap the base in tin foil and place it into a baking dish. This is to catch any syrup that may leak from the bottom of the tin (so you don't have to deal with a big oven clean-up at the end).

3 For the Blood Orange Topping, in a pot, stir the sugar and blood orange juice over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Cook until thickened slightly, about 5-6 minutes. Set aside to cool.

4 Arrange the slices of blood orange in the base of the tin, starting at the outside of the tin and working your way in, generously overlapping as you go. Pour over the syrup and set aside.