WHO’S given up chocolate for Lent then? Not me!

This week’s recipe is for the king of the breakfast table.

Marmalade makes a welcome change in almost any situation, but sadly sales have been in decline and on a knife edge for some years now, as chocolate spread and peanut butter are favoured by the young.

I’m sure most of us have been given a jar of homemade marmalade as a present or bought a jar from a church fete. So you should bring it out and enjoy it.

If this humble jar of sunshine isn’t your thing, a sticky marmalade loaf cake can be whipped up in a few minutes.

I’d like to think that if I offer a slice to Paddington Bear he would keep a piece of cake, rather than a marmalade sandwich, under his hat.

Marmalade has been the core of our nation’s breakfast since 1790 after a Spanish ship carrying a haul of rotten Seville oranges was washed ashore at Dundee harbour during a storm.

The cargo was sold off cheaply to local merchant James Keiller whose wife turned the decomposing citrus slurry into a tangy preserve... and the rest is history.

While toast and marmalade for breakfast is an absolutely quintessentially British classic staple, cake can also be a great way of enjoying the bitter orange flavours at other times of the day.

I’m sure most jam makers will have bottled and made year’s Seville marmalade by now because January is a short season, but don’t feel put off with this recipe: a pot of ready-made marmalade will work just as well.

Also remember, cakes you make at home are always more interesting than the ones you buy from the supermarket that come in a cardboard box and plastic sleeve almost impossible to recycle.

I like the wobbly factor, the old-fashioned charm that will always be lacking in any baking that is just too perfect, too symmetrical, too professional.

This cake is all about the flavour, so don’t spend ages worrying about the look of it comes out of the oven. It won’t win any entry prizes at Keighley Show’s best-cake competition.

Just enjoy this cake served as a traditional British moment with a nice cup of tea.

Home baking is, pardon the pun, a piece of cake once you get into it. Just ask mum - you’d be a fool not to make one!

* Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water.

It can be produced from kumquats, lemons, limes, grapefruits, mandarins, sweet oranges, bergamots, and other citrus fruits, or any combination of them, even though the original Portuguese marmalade is produced only from quince. In England the Spanish Seville orange is the most popular marmalade fruit.

The Romans learned from the Greeks that quinces slowly cooked with honey would “set” when cool. Greek “honey fruit” transformed into Portuguese marmelo.

Medieval quince preserves, which went by the French name cotignac, began to lose their seasoning of spices in the 16th century.