Flourless Orange Cake

I remember when I moved to Sydney when I was 13 and I first met a relative, who was honest to goodness a fabulous cook and baker. I remember the Christmas feast of '94 or '95, which still remains the best dinner I ever had. And I also remember his Orange Cake. In fact my whole family remembers that cake, usually with a glassy, dreamlike expression. The orange cake will always be a favourite and amidst all the fantastic desserts that I've eaten, I've always humbly returned to it more in love than ever.

Sadly the official recipe for my uncle's god of cakes has been lost and I've been on a hunt for replacement recipes to satiate my love. And the recipes all vary - some use more eggs than dry ingredients while others use more almond meal than eggs. So naturally, I'm going to try both versions - the first here is the more egg-centric recipe.

A must for a moist, intensely flavoured orange cake is the absence of flour and butter which tends to either dry out the cake, make it too crumbly, greasy, stodgy or dense or simpy dulls the flavour and aroma of the oranges. Because of the amount of eggs in this recipe, the cake ends up unbelievably moist that it's almost like a baked custard or wet pudding rather than cake. It's no wonder that it's a favourite at Jewish Passover (oops, forgot to mention that the baking powder must be omitted - thanks to a lovely reader Joanna for the reminder!).

Pureeing the boiled oranges

As for the citrus, I always prefer the oranges to be boiled, pureed and added to the cake. Frankly the addition of plain old orange juice and/or rind just isn't enough as I like it to be intense. The boiling method cooks the oranges for about 2 hours or so until it's soft enough to puree finely and to remove the bitterness. This method also requires you to drain and refresh the water at least 3 times. The reason for this is so the oranges don't end up re-absorbing the bitterness that has seeped into the water. It's a bit of a long process but it's worth it and if you wish you could always do it in advance. Just allow the oranges to cool down completely then place in a bag or container and refrigerate it until you're ready to bake.

The smell that emanates while it's baking is simply glorious. The only bad thing when I bake this cake is that it never lasts long. An unfortunate consequence in a family of orange cake lovers.


Ingredients

2 medium oranges, seedless if you can get them
6 eggs
1 C caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp (gluten-free) baking powder
1 1/2 C ground almonds / almond meal

Tip: Feeling different? The two oranges can also be replaced by 4-5 clementines, 3 lemons or 350g of kumquats.

Method

Preheat oven to 175°C / 350°F and lightly grease and flour a 23 to 25cm cake tin (9.5 to 10 inch tin). If this cake is for Passover replace the flour with matzo meal. Alternatively you could line with baking paper.

Wash and scrub the outside of the oranges and place them whole (skin and all) in a pot and fill with cold water to cover. Place over a medium high heat and bring to a boil.

Allow to simmer uncovered for 20 minutes or so then drain the oranges, place it back in the pot and refill with more cold water.

Repeat the process by bringing to the boil, simmer for 20 minutes then drain and refresh with more cold water.

Bring it a boil and simmer for about an hour then drain the oranges and set them aside to cool. All up the process should take about 2 hours and you're draining and refreshing the oranges three times.

When the oranges have cooled, roughly chop them to pieces and remove any seeds and white pith (these will make your cake bitter). Place in a blender or food processor (skin and all). Blend/process until a fine puree.

Measure out 1 1/4 cups of the puree. The rest I just keep in the fridge until the next orange cake episode.

Beat the eggs, sugar and baking powder with an electric mixer until thickened and pale in colour.

Add in the ground almonds and mix in well.

On a low speed, add in the orange puree in two or three batches allowing it to beat for at least 20 seconds after each addition.

Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 50 minutes to an hour. In my oven (a pretty basic electric oven), it took 53 minutes. Cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean.

If it looks like it's browning too much after 30 minutes then you can place a sheet of aluminum foil over the cake tin.

When done, remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes before removing it from the tin and cooling on a cake rack.

Serve with a dollop of orange-blossom scented double cream and candied orange peel if you wish.

Recipe adapted from Martha Rose Shulman