Flourless whole orange cake

A gorgeous classic recipe that everyone should have in their arsenal. This is a gluten-free, easily thrown together recipe that makes an incredibly delicious, almost fudgy orange cake. What a great way to make use of beautiful in-season citrus!

Ingredients

1-2 oranges or 4-5 mandarines, about 300g total (plus extra for decoration)

200g caster sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp baking powder

250g almond meal

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

Icing sugar for dusting

Method

Place oranges or mandarines (whole) into a small pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, and allow it to boil for 10 minutes, then drain. Fill the pot with cold water again, boil for 10 minutes, then drain. Repeating this step helps to remove the bitterness in the orange’s pith.

Refill the pot with cold water to cover the oranges again, then simmer on a low heat for 1-2 hours or so (depending on how large they are). Be sure to top up the water as needed. Oranges should be super soft, with no resistance when a knife is pierced in. Drain, then cut into smaller pieces (leave the skin on, but remove seeds) and set aside to cool slightly.

Preheat the oven to 150C fan. Grease and line a 20cm round tin. Thinly slice an additional orange or couple of mandarines, and shingle these slices down on the bottom of the tin.

Place cooled orange pieces into food processor, then blitz until completely smooth. Scrape down as needed. Add the sugar, eggs, and baking powder, and blitz until combined. Add the almond meal and salt and pulse until it comes together.

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for 1-1.5 hours until a skewer poked into its centre comes out clean. Allow to cool completely in tin before turning over to reveal your beautiful cake.

Serve with a generous dusting of icing sugar.

Keeps extremely well for 5-6 days in the fridge.