I love wholesome cakes that are sweet yet not overly sweet. Orange and almond cake would have to be one of my favourites; anything sweet with citrus wins me every time. This recipe is easy and doesn’t require hours spent waiting for oranges to boil and soften. You do however need a food processor or blender to puree the oranges and an electric beater (or whisk) to cream the sugar and eggs as this gives the cakes a lightness and helps it to rise. It’s incredibly moist so I suggest keeping this cake, once baked and cooled, in the fridge unless it all gets eaten on the day. Serve a slice of this cake with thicked cream or Greek yoghurt and you have a very beautiful dessert or afternoon tea treat.
You need:
- 2 large oranges
- 250g ground almonds (I suggest grinding almonds yourself but you can also use bought almond meal)
- 180g caster or white sugar
- 6 eggs
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- icing sugar (for dusting) – optional
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius fan-forced and grease a 22cm round cake tin.
Place your oranges in a saucepan (whole oranges, no need to peel), cover with water, and bring to the boil. Boil for 10-15mins, then remove oranges, place on a chopping board and cut into small pieces (I don’t bother removing pips but you can if you like, I just cut the ends off). Puree your oranges and set aside.
Ground your almonds into a meal. I love to keep the meal a little textured but you can grind your almonds to create a fine meal if you like. Alternatively, you can use premade almond meal or flour.
Place eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl and using an electric beater beat the eggs and sugar until creamy, a little fluffy and light. Add your orange puree to your egg and sugar mix and carefully fold in. Then add your ground almonds and baking powder and fold through until combined (however be careful not to over mix).
Pour cake mixture into your tin and bake for 60mins or until a skewer, when inserted into the middle of the cake, comes out clean. Allow cake to cool before removing from tin. Once cool, you can dust with icing sugar (purely to pretty it up) or you can leave it as is. I hope you love this cake as much as I do!
Gestational Diabetes –
This cake can be very suitable for if you have GDM. You can follow the above recipe and use caster sugar, you just need to be careful to have a small piece and time your snack well (i.e. in between meals or not straight after dinner if your dinner does contain a carbohydrate food). I would suggest dividing this cake into 16 pieces – the best way to do this is to cut your cake in half, then into quarters and then divide each quarter into 4 pieces. One piece is likely to be ok (as a snack, in between meals) but it depends on your BGL management and physical activity levels. Caster sugar is a high GI sugar so some women may find this this cake isn’t the best cake for them while they have GDM. You can certainly make it with other sugar, it’s just not easy to ‘cream’ sugar and egg white if using a more course sugar such as raw sugar). If wanting some more personalised guidance, I’d suggest speaking with your Dietitian or reaching out to me via email or social media.
Lara x
