Flourless Orange Cake

What I love the most about this cake is the lack of human interaction needed to make it. The food processor does all the work. Yes it's flourless, yes there are only five ingredients and yes, it's moist and delicious. You would never guess that a cake so intense in orange flavour was so easy to make. The orange flavour in this cake is unlike any other orange cake I've made. It's like eating marmalade in cake form or like biting into an actual orange. In Nigella's original recipe she uses clementines, but I couldn't find any in the supermarket so used oranges instead as she advised. She mentions that you can also use lemons, but as with the oranges, you just increase the sugar content by 25g. Whichever citrus fruit you choose, I can guarantee you will be pleased. Even though this is a cake, it could easily pass as a pudding because of how moist it is. Serve it with some creme fraiche and raspberries like we did and you're on your way to something great. It was the perfect cake for Mother's Day because it is the mother of all orange cakes. 

The first thing I did was take two oranges, place them in a pan of cold water and bring them to a boil. Once the water had started boiling, I partially covered them with a lid and left them to cook for two hours. 

Now, I would advise you not to just forget them for the two hours because the water does evaporate away. I checked up on them a couple of times and topped up the water a little bit.  

After the two hours, the kitchen was perfumed with the scent of oranges and the fruits themselves were very soft. I drained the water and left them cool in the pan while I preheated the oven and prepped the cake tin. 

When the oranges had cooled, I put them into the processor and blitzed them until they became mush. There was no need to remove the skin or the pith because they were so soft. 

As I mentioned before, this cake is flourless, but it's also butter-less. What I'm essentially creating here with the oranges is orange butter because by preparing them this way, they lend their colour, moisture and flavour.

All that was left was to add in all the rest of the ingredients: the eggs, the sugar, ground almonds and baking powder.

I then blitzed this all together until it formed liquid sunshine.  

I poured this into a tin buttered and lined with greaseproof paper and let it bake for 40 minutes. 

I checked to see if it was ready by poking the middle with a toothpick. It came out clean so I removed it from the oven and left it to cool in the tin. 

When we were ready to eat, it was simply the case of turning it out of the tin, slicing up and serving with creme fraiche and some sweet raspberries. As you can see, the process of making this cake is easy peasy, orange squeezy. It tasted fabulous and went down a treat. The orange flavour actually intensifies the next day, so if you do have the time, make this the night before, leave it in the tin and when you're ready to eat it the next day, take it out and enjoy! It's so easy, you might even have the time to make two!

Serves: 8-10 people

Prep time: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Baking time: 40 minutes 

Ingredients:

• Approx. 375g oranges (around 2 oranges)
• 6 eggs, at room temperature 
• 250g caster sugar 
• 250g ground almonds 
• 1tsp baking powder 

Method:

1. Place the oranges into a pan of cold water and bring to a boil. Cover partially with the lid and leave to boil for two hours. Check a couple of times that there is still water in the pan and top up with water if needed. 
2. After the two hours, drain the water from the pan and leave the oranges to cool. While you are waiting you can preheat the oven to 170 degrees, and prep the tin with butter and greaseproof paper. 
3. Once the oranges have cooled, place them into a processor and blitz to form an orange puree. Add in the rest of the ingredients and blitz again until it's all incorporated. If you want, you can mix the other ingredients by hand and then add the pureed oranges to that. 
4. Pour the golden cake batter into your prepared tin and place in the oven to bake for 40 minutes. Once the cake is ready, remove it from the oven but leave it to cool in the tin. When the cake has cooled, turn it out of the tin, slice, serve and enjoy.