Chop everything finely — skins, pith, fruit — in the food processor. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3 and grease and line a 24cm/9½in loaf tin or a 20cm/8in cake tin. Weigh the orange pulp ...

When making dense fruit cakes such as a Christmas cake, the batter needs to be heavy enough for the dried fruit and nuts to be suspended in it; if it's too thin the fruit will sink to the bottom.

Add orange zest – you can set aside some for the glaze if you plan to drizzle the cake with sweet glaze. Mix in the flour and baking powder. Add 90 mL of freshly squeezed orange juice and mix again.

When preparing the batter for the orange cake, adhere to the recommended amount of juice in the recipe. Much like a lemon cake, too much fruit juice can cause a soggy result. For decoration ...