This cake is the easiest piece of baking I have ever done. All it requires is a bit of cooking and then the food processor and the oven will do all the hard work. Nigella bakes hers with clementines, I have tried with oranges and it’s a raving success, less so with limes as it was extremely bitter, although I later found out the fruit I used had more pith than pulp, so that might be why. The recipe below is for the orange version, but feel free to substitute more or less the same weight with lemons, limes, clementines and so forth. I reckon two big oranges will probably equal about 5 to 6 limes and the same amount of clementines, while with lemons it all depends on how big they are.
Ingredients
- 2 large oranges
- 250g ground almonds
- 6 eggs
- 225g caster sugar (but golden caster sugar works just as fine)
- 1 tsp baking powder
Method
- Remove the stalk from the oranges, then put them in a pan filled with water and boil them for 2 hours, topping the water as you go as it will evaporate. Don’t peel them, don’t quarter them, just put them whole in.
- Once they are completely cooked, let them cool completely. I usually do this the previous day so the oranges have time to cool overnight, but if you are doing the whole process in a day, then I’d reckon a couple of hours should do.
- Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line and grease a 20cm springform tin.
- Slice the oranges in half using a very sharp knife and remove the seeds if there are any, then put them in a food processor and blitz them until they are mushy and coarse.
- Slowly add the rest of the ingredients and keep on whizzing until the cake batter is smooth and combined.
- Pour in the tin and bake for about 1 hour, covering the cake with foil after 40 minutes if the surface is browning too much. Remember to use a skewer to check if the cake is cooked all the way through.
- Take out of the oven and put on a cooling rack, but cover with a towel to keep the cake moist.
- Serve on its own or with some whipped cream/ice cream.
Baking with Attitude 