Blood Orange & Poppyseed Baby Bundt Cakes

These baby bundt cakes are as sweet as can be! With a dense, moist orange and poppyseed cake they're almost sherbetty in taste. And decorating them is easy-just mix some fresh blood orange juice and icing sugar for a beautiful pink frosting!

These cakes weren't for any special occasion apart from the fact that it is blood orange season and whenever I see them come at the markets I get very excited. So I bought about a dozen hoping that they'd be that gorgeous dark purple, beetrooty colour inside.

I really hope that I haven't missed the short blood orange season because quite honestly my timing has been totally off in the past couple of weeks. It's just annoying little things that make me feel like I'm out of sync with the universe. For example I wanted to buy some special sprinkles for a friend's upcoming baby shower where I was making cupcakes. It wasn't for another month but I figured that as I was going to be away I may as well place my order. And one morning I had a few minutes spare so I put the order through wincing at the high cost of a small bag of sprinkles (over $40AUD with overseas shipping!). Less than two hours later I saw a very similar product in Australia for a fraction of the price. If only I had waited!

Then I was going training with Nina. Except as I pulled up to Centennial Park it started raining, lightly at first and then heavily. I messaged her and we volleyed back and forth location ideas, most of them stymied by appointments afterwards.

Then I suggested her place, actually her garage. It ended up being worse than I imagined. It was a wind tunnel so it was freezing and the ambiance of a garage is grey and depressing at best. Plus it was also very busy so people kept coming in and out and all my favourite bits of equipment weren't to hand. It was pretty sad and even Mochi looked mournful and started humping her little bed that I had laid out for her to make her more comfortable (humping is anxiety behaviour).

And then Nina said, "You know if you hadn't suggested my house and waited 10 seconds then I would have suggested that we just have coffee."

"Coffee? Coffee? That was an option??? Whyyyyyy couldn't I have waited?" I said dramatically while shivering on the cold floor of her garage.

Oh what a difference timing makes...

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever feel like your timing is off and that you're out of sync with the universe? Is there a fruit or vegetable that you look forward to every year? Do you like blood oranges?

Blood Orange & Poppyseed Mini Bundt Sherbet Cakes

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

• 600g/21.2ozs. blood oranges
• 1.5 cups caster or superfine sugar
• 125g/4ozs. butter, softened
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup poppyseeds

For icing

• 1.5 cups icing or confectioner's sugar, sifted
• 3 tablespoons blood orange juice or enough to make a drippable icing

Step 1 - Butter a tray of mini bundt molds and preheat oven to 180C/350F. Finely grate 3 tablespoons of the orange zest from the oranges and juice them to make 3/4 cup of blood orange juice.

Step 2 - Beat the sugar and butter together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time mixing well until well combined. Fold in the flour, baking powder and poppyseeds in two batches alternating with the zest and juice.

Step 3 - Spoon into a piping bag and pipe into the molds. Bake for 20 minutes or until done.

Step 4 - Mix the icing sugar with the blood orange juice. Dip the top of the cakes into the icing and allow to drip down the sides.