An effortless flourless cake, using every part of the orange and four additional ingredients.

I believe sometimes, when you repeatedly notice the same image/ book / cake in multiple places, it’s a sign it’s for you. I saw this recipe twice in one week (first in Waste Note by James Beard Foundation and then in Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit) and it has now become a repeat offender in my kitchen. It’s so easy and a big crowd pleaser everytime.

It’s so nice boiling the oranges as it makes the whole house smell delicious like a long hot day in July and a short cold one at the end of December at the same time.

Organic oranges work best here as the whole fruit including the orange peel is used in the recipe.

I like to cook my oranges in the slow cooker and leave them on low for around 4 hours until they are extremely soft. It feels slightly strange to blend whole oranges at first but the peel adds additional flavour and adds a nice marmalade-y texture to the finished cake.

Whole Orange & Almond Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 large oranges
• 6 eggs
• 250g ground almonds
• 250g coconut sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder

+ a lined 23cm round cake tin

Recipe:

1. Boil the oranges in water for nearly 2 hours, until completely soft, then leave to cool.
2. Once cool, slice and remove the pips.
3. Place the orange slices into the blender and blend into a pulp.
4. Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin.
5. Preheat the oven to 190°C / Gas mark 5.
6. Beat the eggs in a large bowl.
7. Add the ground almonds, sugar, baking powder and the orange pulp.
8. Pour the cake mixture into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour.
9. The cake is ready when a fork is poked into the centre and comes out clean.
10. Leave to cool and enjoy :~)

A useful tip from James Beard (author of Waste Not) ~ “the cake does not rise too much and always looks like it will not firm up, but don’t worry, it does.”