Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Classic Flourless Orange and Almond Cake

Orange and almond cake, brushed with an apricot glaze

This is a lovely cake, which I found is best eaten cold 1-2 days later. It keeps well in the fridge for up to 1 week. Here is the recipe, adapted from Belinda Jeffery's cookbook, which is actually based on Claudia Roden's "A Book of Middle Eastern Food".

Classic Flourless Orange and Almond Cake

Ingredients

2 large navel oranges
250g almond meal
250g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
6 large eggs

Glaze:
3/4 cup apricot jam
2 tbsp water
Blanched almonds / Almond flakes

Method

  1. Place oranges in a large pot of boiling water and boil for 1 1/2 - 2 hours or until soft enough for a skewer to go through with ease. Top up the water from time to time so as to keep the oranges fully submerged. Spin the oranges around occasionally so that they cook evenly. When ready, drain and leave to cool. Chop them coarsely, skin and all and puree finely in a food processor.
  2. Preheat oven to 170C. Grease and line base and sides of a 22cm round cake tin with buttered baking paper. Dust the tin lightly with flour (or almond meal) and set aside.
  3. Whisk the almond meal, sugar and baking powder in a large bowl for half a minute or so.
  4. Using an electric mixer, whisk/beat the eggs on medium-high speed for about 6 minutes until light and fluffy. Turn off the mixer. Pour the orange puree and almond mixture into the eggs. Mix on low speed until just combined. Pour into prepared tin.
  5. Bake for 1 hour or until the top of the cake is just firm when pressed gently. Cool the cake in the tin on a wire rack. Once cool, invert the cake onto a serving plate and remove paper. Pour the apricot glaze over the cake and brush it all over evenly. You can coat the almonds in the glaze and decorate the cake with them.
  6. To make the glaze, boil the jam with 2 tbsp water for about 5 minutes until it becomes thick and syrupy. Pass it through a sieve and it's ready for glazing.
The texture is somewhere between a cake and a pudding, moist with a bittersweet orange tang


Navel oranges that have been boiled until soft, and then pureed finely. These are combined
with eggs, almond meal,baking powder and sugar. No butter or oil!

12 comments:

shien said...

hello, can you share the recipe of thi cake?

To Food With Love said...

Sure, I'll post it soon :)

shien said...

thank you for posting the recipe for this cake, really appreciate it! :)

Emma Faith said...

Wow, yummy!
i love orange cake Cupcakes, thanks for sharing this method. I will try it.

Silvia said...

Hi, did you try to make it on a bunt or Long Loaf Pan?
Looks perfect for a non gluten orange cake.
Thanks
S

Fern @ To Food With Love said...

Hi Silvia
I only used a round cake tin. I'm sure it would work with a loaf pan too.

Andrew R. Forman said...

Clear, informative, simple. Love your post!

Anonymous said...

your recipe is far more complicated than mine. The oranges can be boiled for 15 minutes, drained and covered again with water and boiled another 15 minutes. Put them into a blender and puree until smooth. There is no need to boil them for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. The 2 15 minute boils are enough. I use 3 oranges, 3 eggs 3 cups of almond meal, 1 cup of sugar and one tsp of baking powder. Beat eggs and sugar until pale yellow, add almond meal and baking powder and orange puree. Put into a springform cake pan, with buttered sides and parchment paper cut to fit bottom of pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. That's it. My recipe is much simpler and easier and faster than yours. It is equally, if not better, than yours too.

MissFeas said...

What a rude comment, Anonymous.

I had the free time to make both this morning and did - I found the posted recipe much tastier than yours.

But you know that, or else you'd have your own blog and followers, wouldn't you, Anonymous? Bless your heart.

Anonymous said...

Your post is dispectful. I think the original recipe is wonderful. Maybe you make your own blog and post your recipes instead of putting other peoples recipes down. Question... did you even try this version before putting "mine is better than yours rant".

Anonymous said...

Just to make sure, does this recipe not require butter in it? Thank you

Fern @ To Food With Love said...

No butter required