Clementine Cake

This lovely recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's, 1998 cookbook, How to Eat. The cake itself is dense, moist, flourless and has the most incredible orange taste; that intensifies the day after it is made. I recommend making this cake as you will not be disappointed.

Nigella Lawson's Clementine Cake

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Serves 8 - 10

approximately 13 ounces clementines (approximately 3 medium sized ones)

6 large eggs

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar 

2 1/4 cups almond meal (ground almonds) 

1 teaspoon baking powder *

* to make this a gluten free cake use gluten free baking powder or omit the baking powder all together.

Method:

Put the clementines in a pan with some cold water bring to a boil and cook for 2 hours.

Drain and, when cool, cut each clementine in half and remove the pips. Dump the clementines - skins, pith, fruit and all, and give a quick blitz in a food processor (or by hand, of course) Pre-heat oven to gas mark 5/190ºC/375ºF. Butter and line a 21cm/8 inch Springform pan.

You can add all the ingredients into the food processor and mix, or, you can beat the eggs by hand adding the sugar, almonds and baking powder, mixing well, then finally adding the pulped oranges.

Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for an hour, when a skewer will come out clean; you'll probably have to cover with foil or grease proof paper after 40 minutes to stop the top from burning. Remove from oven and leave to cool, on a rack, but in the tin. When the cakes's cold, you can take it out of the tin. 

Notes: I used approximately 6 small to medium sized clementines. I used a blender to pulp the clementines and mixed everything else by hand. My baking time was under the suggested time of 1 hour, so I recommend checking it at the 30 minute mark. My total baking time was between 40 to 50 minutes. 

To view the recipe, see the metric conversions, and Nigella's notes go to nigella.com, or click *here* and type in clementine cake.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far. - JD