Flourless Orange Cake Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Serves: 8
Ingredients Needed
For Candied Oranges
- 4 medium sized oranges (around 650g/23oz)
- 1 cup/220g/7.7ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs water
For Cake
- 3 large oranges (around 600g/21oz)
- 6 eggs
- 250g ground almonds
- 250g sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 CANDIED ORANGES - Slice oranges using a mandolin or knife, you want them around 2-3mm or around 1/8 inch and they should be whole slices, not half or partial slices. Place the sugar and water in a medium saucepan on medium heat and stir to melt the sugar. Once melted, add in the orange slice and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the peels become semi translucent. Scoop orange slices out of the saucepan onto a plate and leave to cool. Allow the syrup to simmer for 1 minute and then leave to cool.
Step 2 TILING - Line the base and sides of a 20cm/8inch springform tin with parchment. Once the orange slices are cool enough to handle, brush the syrup onto the parchment to adhere the orange slices and place down the orange slices that curve around on the side first and then tile them around that overlapping them so that there are no gaps. The ones on the side are the peskiest to stick but persevere using the syrup which gets nice and sticky once cooled. Reserve the remaining syrup to brush over cake once baked.
Step 3 BOILED ORANGES - Pierce oranges all over with a knife and place in a microwave proof bowl with enough water to entirely cover oranges. Cover with cling film and microwave on high for 25 minutes until soft and sunken in. Alternatively you can boil whole oranges in water in a covered saucepan for 2 hours. Discard water, allow to cool, then cut open, remove pips and chop roughly. You can do this step a day or so ahead of time and keep the boiled oranges, once cooled, in the fridge.
Step 4 BLEND - Preheat oven to 190C/374F fan forced or 210C/410F conventional. Place the chopped oranges into a food processor and blend until smooth (Thermomix: 15 seconds, speed #10). Add almond meal, sugar, eggs and baking powder and blitz until well combined (Thermomix: 20 seconds, speed #7).
Step 5 BAKE - Scoop batter into the tin on top of the orange slices and smooth over. Bake for 1 hour. Cool in the tin and then upturn onto a serving plate and remove parchment. Brush syrup on top and serve.
Substitution notes:
Try this with blood oranges too!
Personal Note
Although this cake looks like a celebration cake, it's really quite straightforward I promise! And in rather exciting news, we are actually going to Singapore in December to see my mother and sister. We enjoy going to Singapore and my mother still loves to go out for lunch even if she can't travel any more. She does have to go in a wheelchair but she enjoys a good lunch as much as anyone.
The last one we went to was at a Japanese restaurant in Marina Bay Sands. There were four of us: my mother, sister Blythe, Mr NQN and I. It was for my birthday and Blythe had pre-ordered a special birthday cake for me.
Blythe is also a very organised person so she whispered to the waitress, "The cake is for my sister. She and her husband are visiting from Australia." It was her way of stressing that it was a special occasion for overseas visitors. The waitress nodded and came back a few minutes later carrying the cake.
She then promptly took it to my mother!
The whole table could not stop laughing at this. In one gesture she had managed to shade everyone. My mother definitely does not look like Blythe's sister and Mr NQN definitely doesn't look like her husband! And it's something we still laugh about this to this day.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you like orange cakes? Have you ever had a case of mistaken identity like that?