Flourless Orange Cake: Recipe 2

Recipe 2 served with an orange syrup

If you’ve read my previous post, you’ll remember how I was on the hunt for the perfect flourless orange cake recipe and how there were two different recipes that I wanted to try.

From the other post,Recipe 1 contained 6 eggs along with 1.5 cups of ground almonds and about 1.25 cups of boiled orange puree, which resulted in a seductively moist and intensely flavoured cake. Essentially this recipe (hereby creatively dubbed Recipe 2) is the same except the amount of eggs have been halved and the almond meal doubled. Also instead of measuring out 1.25 cups of the orange puree, I simply used the whole two oranges.

Recipe 1 served with an orange blossom scented cream

Despite the differences in the amounts of almond meal and liquid, both cakes turned out equally soft and moist and both were best when eaten the next day when their flavours have developed (and the cakes were even more moist).

Some noted differences:

• Recipe 1 baked (and browned) quicker and more consistently.
• Recipe 2 browned unevenly and slower and I found it stuck a little more to the tin despite using a greased non-stick cake pan. The top of the cake was also a touch dryer and crustier when it came out of the oven but that didn’t matter the next day.
• Because Recipe 2 takes longer to bake, you’ll have to watch that the bottom of the cake doesn’t burn.
• The Captain thought that Recipe 1 was more intensely flavoured.

Personally I’ll stick with Recipe 1 for the intensity, more consistent baking and the fact that it used half the amount of almond meal, which in Australia, doesn’t come cheap! Of course this was only one experiment and plenty more ‘tests’ are needed to be definitive (that’s the excuse I’m using to eat excessive cake and I’m sticking to it!).

Wow…recipe or lab report?! In any case, just be kind to let me know if I start bordering on citrus cake obsession.

Flourless Orange Cake (Recipe 2)

Ingredients

2 whole oranges, seedless if possible
3 eggs
1 C caster sugar
3 C (about 300gm) almond meal/ground almonds
1.5 tsp baking powder

Orange Syrup

1 orange
130gm (just over 1/2 cup) caster sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 170°C and lightly grease and flour a 22-23cm cake tin. 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 (depends on how long it takes for your pot to boil) 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.

Preheat oven to 170°C and lightly grease and flour a 22-23cm cake tin. Alternatively you could line with baking paper. Beat the eggs, sugar and baking powder with an electric mixer until thickened and pale in colour.

Add in the orange puree and the ground almonds and gently fold with a spatula until just combined

Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 50 minutes to an hour. In my basic electric oven it took 1 hour and I rotated the cake at 50 minutes because it was browning unevenly. Cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean.

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

Boiled orange zest for the syrup

Orange Syrup

Zest the orange or peel off the rind and cut into thin strips. Juice the orange and strain out the pulp.

Place the zest in a small pot of water and bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain then place back in the pot and add the juice and caster sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar.

When boiled, reduce the heat to low and keep stirring for a couple more minutes until sugar has entirely dissolved and the syrup has thickened slightly.

I like to pour the syrup over individual cake slices but if you’d like you could place the whole cake on a serving plate, poke holes over it with a skewer, then spoon the syrup over the cake before serving.

Tagged as: Almond Meal, Cake, Flourless, Fruit, Gluten Free, Orange