This beautiful cake came about from the gift of some barley from the Schmidt family in Light Pass, located in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. Barley has a naturally sweet nutty flavour and is a little more nutritious than wheat flour with more fibre and ability to absorb more liquid. The normally savoury addition of rosemary and salt gives this cake a much more complex layered flavour and so worth seeking out barley flour from your nearest health food store to make it. If you can’t source it, substitute with wholemeal spelt flour instead.
Ingredients
(Serves 12)
150 ml honey
100 g light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp salt flakes
250 ml orange juice
300 g barley flour or spelt or wholemeal wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 eggs
140 ml rice bran oil or vegetable or grapeseed oil
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
Icing
100 g icing sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 ½ tbsp tahini
1 ½ tbsp orange juice
1 tsp finely chopped rosemary + rosemary flowers
Salt flakes
Method
- Preheat oven to 180˚ C. Line a 20cm springform cake tin.
- Gently warm the honey, muscovado sugar, salt flakes and orange juice together until dissolved and combined.
- Combine the barley flour, baking powder and bicarb soda in a medium sized bowl.
- Beat the eggs, rice bran oil and orange zest together until well combined.
- Beat the honey mixture and egg mixture into the flour mixture until a smooth, soft batter.
- Spoon over the batter into the tin and bake in the oven for 40 minutes until an inserted skewer into the centre of the cake comes away clean.
- To make the icing, place the icing sugar and ¼ tsp salt in a bowl. Stir in the tahini and orange juice. Add a little extra orange juice if needed to make a spreadable consistency.
- Spread over the cake and then sprinkle over the chopped rosemary and rosemary flowers and salt flakes.
