Orange Cake
Yum. Gluten Free and Dairy Free Orange Cake. There's something special about oranges. Such a simple fruit yet, bursting with flavor and possibility, they remind me of winter, specifically Christmas.
A while back I told ~M, one of my favorite readers, that I would post my version of Claudia Roden's
2 oranges
4 eggs
¾ cup agave nectar
2 cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
- Wash the oranges and boil them whole (peel and all) for 1 ½ hours, or until soft
- Place whole oranges (peel and all) in a food processor
and blend until smooth
- Process in eggs, agave, almond flour, salt and baking soda until well blended
- Pour batter into a greased 9-Inch round cake pan
- Bake at 375° for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean
- Cool in the pan for 2 hours
- Serve
Serves 6-8
This cake was also popularized by Nigella Lawson, though her version is made with clementines. I think it would be fun to make this with lemons, though imagine some adjustments would need to be made if experimenting with this more intensely sour citrus fruit.
Whether served at Thanksgiving, Channukah or Christmas, this cake ends a holiday meal with flare. Enjoy!
PS. head on over to A Gluten-Free Day where Emilia rounds up more fruit desserts for her "Go Ahead Honey, It’s Gluten Free" monthly gluten-free blog event.
Posted on November 18, 2008 in desserts by Elana
you might also like: Homemade Starbucks Orange Cake
or Christmas Cake
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Don't forget Pesach! :) I made it for Pesach last April with meyer lemons and used 1.25 cups sugar instead of the 1 cup + 2T sugar for oranges. You could probably even sweeten it less with meyer lemons (as opposed to regular lemons). I've also made it with satsumas. I think lime, lemon-lime, or even grapefruit could be excellent, too! I love the smell of the citrus simmering! By the way, this seems to be a very "forgiving" recipe since I used relatively course almond meal (with the skins on) and it worked beautifully and tasted great, albeit rich!
Thanks so much for posting this!
I make this same (almost) cake, using 1 2/3 c. almond flour. Also I use three eggs, but mix the egg yolks and sugar first, then add the fruit puree and almond flour, and then the stiffly beaten egg whites. I make it frequently using two or three lemons. I don't make any other changes, but it is tart!
I am SO going to make this tomorrow morning!! YUM!!
SO delightful-looking!!
Oooohhh.. My boys love orange.
When do you peel the orange? Or does the whole
orange, peel and all, go into the blender?
Just making sure... since you're cooking the oranges whole, I assume you put the whole orange (unpeeled) into the food processor??
Thanks.
This looks so wonderful and simple! I am going to try it this weekend. I am dreaming of a chocolate drizzle on top.... yum...
This sounds great & the picture looks irresistable! One question, though, do you blend the oranges with peel & pith? Thank you for all the wonderful recipes!
Hi Elana-
First I want to say I made your chocolate chip cookies(the ones with the grapeseed oil) the other day and they were FABULOUS! Thank you!
Question: In this recipe did you peel the oranges?
Hi there! I've just found your site and I can't wait to try *everything*. My step-mother is on a gluten-free diet, I'm diabetic, and we're both very much into healing through food.
Before I dive in to this one I wanted to make sure:
when you say boil and process the oranges "whole" you mean peel and everything?
Thanks!
Miranda
Sheer bliss! We all adore oranges or anything citrus-related. This recipe many times simplified reminds me of Sicilian almond cake sans marzipan.
Mmmm, I'm trying it this weekend....Thank you so much for sharing.
Mariella
P.S. Love your photography!
Hello,
I was excited to find your beautiful website which is very similar to the way I need to eat (minus so much sugar). I made your fig newton recipe, without the sencond sweetener, and was dismayed to find how oily the cookie "dough" was. Have you tried it with less oil? I did use your recommended brand of almond flour.
Magma
When I make this recipe, I food process the entire citrus (skin, pith, inside) minus the seeds/pips.
Wow Elana,
This sounds simply yummy. I love that you used almond flour and it intrigues me that it doens't need other GF flour combinations to make it work. so simple! Plus, no xanthan gum. wow. This is such a healthy and yummy looking cake for the holiday season. thank you so much. You have sold me on almond and coconut flours - gonna order some soon.
thanks,
sarah
This cake looks so moist, perhaps some fresh cranberries and toasted walnuts? A drizzle of icing would be perfection.
the flavor of this cake is great. but the outside burned a bit t 375 for 45 minutes. to prevent this, would i turn the oven down and bake longer? thank you.
As soon as I saw this, I immediately thought of Nigella's recipe which I have always pondered, but never tried. Yours looks easier. I have two oranges that I bought to make wassail for my support group's open house tomorrow (that recipe is from Stephanie's A Year of Crockpotting blog, http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/), but I am very tempted to make this recipe this evening and buy more oranges tomorrow morning. ;-) Not sure if I have enough almond flour though. :-( Ordering that is on my "to do" list. If not, I will make this VERY soon. Thanks!
I've made at least half of the recipes on this site and only use Oliovita delicate and mild olive oil for baking rather than the grapeseed oil and love it. The oil is so light and basically has no taste.
~M -Thanks for your comment and for inspiring me to post this recipe. I am looking forward to trying it with other citrus!
Pat -Your lemon version sounds delicious.
Chrissy -Hope you liked it as much as we did :-)
Veggiegirl -Thanks!
Ruth -Peel and all; thanks for pointing out that the instructions weren't clear enough, I edited that to be more straightforward.
Sue -Peel and all :-)
Robin -I like the chocolate drizzling idea.
Laurinda -Yup, peel and all; you are welcome!
Cate -You are welcome, and no, don't peel the oranges.
Miranda -Yes the whole thing; glad you found us here :-)
Mariella -You are welcome; thanks for your comment.
Magma -Removing/substituting even one ingredient in a recipe will change the entire recipe and you may need to make significant adjustments when doing so --as you are basically experimenting and will achieve varied (and not always good) results. In this case, I would just recommend rolling the dough in a bit more almond flour to make it drier. This is generally the trick for oily dough (no matter what type of flour you are using).
~M -Thanks.
Sarah -Thanks for your comment. Have fun baking sans the xanthum.
Hayley -That sounds delicious!
melissa -Thanks for your comment. I would first get an oven thermometer to see if your oven is baking correctly at the temperature it is set to. If it is, then I would remove the cake at 35-40 minutes and reduce the baking time, rather than turning down the heat. Also, you could try to bake it on a lower oven rack than you did the first time...Hope this helps and let me know how it goes.
Shirley -Thanks for another great comment. Enjoy the cake!
Terri I like the idea of using a mild olive oil in place of the grapeseed. Thanks for sharing your substitution tip.
I finally found agave nectar in a health food store, but could someone please tell me how much ml 1 cup of agave nectar exactly is?
And does anyone know how much grams are in 1 cup of almond flour, I think it is around 100 grams per cup. It would be greatly appreciated if i could get the precise numbers ;)
Looks fantastic! Can't wait to make it :) Thanks for all your recipes. I love that they are wholesome, flavorful & satisfying. I'm always looking forward to browsing through all of them, both old and new! I'm grateful to find other people who eat similarly & are as passionate about food as I am.
fran -I take it you are not baking in the U.S. You can go to this website for conversions; I found it by googling "convert ml to cups." For the exact weights of specific ingredients I would weigh them on a scale and then use the aforementioned chart to convert the recipes, though if you don't have a cup to measure out the ingredients, then this wouldn't work so it might not be a helpful suggestion. You could always post this question in my forums, there are lots of helpful folks over there and many from Europe.
MamaBear -Thanks for your lovely comment; I also enjoy connecting with people passionate about food.
I just made this cake, and my house smells wonderful. When I boiled the oranges, I threw in half a dozen whole cloves. When everything was done boiling, I tossed the cloves in the food processor too - not sure if they'll make a difference in the cake since I probably boiled all the flavor out of them, but I couldn't help it. It's just such a lovely combination of flavors and scents. I can't wait to try the cake! I'm taking this and another non-GF cake to work tomorrow for my birthday - let's see which one goes faster! :) Thanks, Elana!
Someone wrote that they loved your pumpkin apple soup recipe. Could you post or send it to my e-mail. I'd love to serve it at our thanksgiving meal.
Thanks for your website and fabulous recipes!
Kim -I bet that smelled amazing, though sounds as if it might taste a little too strong --did it work?
Chris -I haven't posted a pumpkin apple soup recipe, though wish I had one, it sounds divine.
Elana - Thank you so very much for this yum recipe! Our whole house smells like lovely oranges - I added whole cloves and a cinnamon stick to the boiling water to really take advantage of the citrus fragrance :)
SherryQ,
Thanks for your comment and hope it tasted as good as it smelled.
Elana
I tried making this on Thanksgiving and I almost had it, except that when I tried to transfer the cake from the pan to the cooling rack it broke in half:( I was really disappointed, but I want to try it again, even just for the smell of warm citrus. What can you recommend for me so that this doesn't happen again. In the old days I would have "floured" my pan, but that's not a possibility anymore. I'd really appreciate the input. Thanks!
carolyn,
Thanks for your comment. I changed the instructions to read "cool the cake in the pan" after you left it. I think this will do the trick. Let me know how it goes.
Elana
Just a note to Carolyn, Elana gave you a solution for this cake :-), but I just wanted to mention that you can still flour your pans even if GF. After you grease them, you just pour a little of your GF flour into the pan and tilt it and turn so the flour will go over the greased area. Then dump out the excess. (It shouldn't be much left to dump out, if any.)
Shirley,
Thanks for the great tip. You can also grease the pan and then flour it with almond flour, that also works quite well.
Elana
Thanks Elana. One last thing, to grease the pan or to not grease the pan? That is the question.
Duh, I just read you and Shirley last posts. Thanks for the tip. I'll try it again. The smell of warm citrus was amazing!
carolyn,
Good luck and let us know how it goes this time.
Elana
Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe. I decided it would also make beautiful carrot spice muffins - so I went with your original recipe and added cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg alone with a few grated carrots and a couple of handfuls of raisins. You may need to increase the almond flour by 1/2 cup. They were fabulous and very moist.
Next up - banana cranberry oat muffins using this as the basis and certified GF oats. Thankyou!
Dawn,
That sounds amazing!
Elana
I modified the Orange Cake recipe yesterday to make a Lemon Poppyseed Cake. I used 6 small lemons in place of the oranges. Everything else I kept the same, except that I added 20 drops of stevia and 1T poppyseeds. It turned out well, very moist and tasty. Not too tart, not too sweet and very filling. Thanks for the inspiration!
Kristin
Kristin,
That sounds amazing!!!! I will definitely be trying it.
Thanks,
Elana
Hi Elana,
I'm starting to audition Pesach recipes and bought some Meyer lemons (on sale!) to make a version of this cake. I weighed out the Meyer Lemons to be 1 lb because Nigella's version calls for 1 lb of citrus. Would you say that the 2 oranges you used are equal, more, or less than 1 lb? I hope you are enjoying the navel oranges over there as much as we are over here! Thanks!
Thanks so much, as always!
~M
~M,
Hmmmmm. My guess would be that 2 oranges would weigh in at more than a pound, not sure exactly how much more though. Maybe go for 1.25 pounds? I have been meaning to make this cake with lemons (of any and all sort) and bet it will be amazing with the Meyers.
Let me know how it goes :-)
Elana
Elana - have you tried the new Starbucks Gluten Free Valencia Orange Cake? It's a copycat of your recipe. in a muffin form with sliced almonds and an orange syrup on top. All in an individual wrapper. Truly fabulous! They should re-name it Elana's Gluten Free Valencia Orange Cake! So nice to have a gluten free alternative at Starbucks.
Hi just for comments sake: I tried the orange almond cake using my own home made blanched almond flour and it didn't hold together quite as well :( I blanched EVERY almond myself. Oh well. But still yummy mush like goo mhh
I have been looking for a recipe like this since starbucks came out with their cake. I just bought the last seasons worth of valencias from the farmers market sat and am super excited to make this cake. Maybe tonight...
As soon as I found this recipe last night, I dashed into my kitchen and made this cake. I didn't have blanched almond flour, so I grinded my own almonds (not blanched, however). I didn't grind the almonds fine enough but even so the cake was DELICIOUS! Next time I will splurge on blanched almond meal. Thanks for such a delicious treat!! Perfect orange flavor.
Thanks for your comments! This recipe won't work if you blanch the almonds yourself, unless you let them dry out for a couple of days --otherwise you will get as Carin did a "mush like goo." When switching ingredients, unfortunately, unpredictable results usually occur. Hope this helps :-)
Elana -I am a doctor who specializes in gastrointestinal health, and kids are becoming a prevalant component of my practice. I am currently putting together a cookbook for my gfcf kids and their parents (emphasizing lunch at school ideas). I don't have time to put together original recipes, but I like to use recipes I find on the internet and then give credit to the creator of the recipe. Working parents with ADD and autistic kids don't have time to peruse the internet, yet, they desperately need a variety of suggestions with recipes to be able to feed their kids in the healthy and restricted diets. I would love to be able to use some of your recipes for this book. Each recipe will be giving you credit, with your web site. Is it ok with you?
PS I was looking for ideas for my breakfast and found this wonderful recipe - that is how I happened to be on this page with my question.
I just recently found your site and I LOVE IT. I am kind of dubious about agave nectar - it is recently getting some bad press - acts like corn syrup! Any comments?
Thanks so very much
Dear Dr. Cynthia, what you are doing sounds fantastic. I will contact you to discuss this question :-)
Dr.Cynthia,
I have many allergies besides the gluten. I cannot use corn, but am doing well with agave. Sometimes I add a little pure maple syrup, too, for flavoring.
I would love to have your book when you are finished.
This cake is so pretty. I hope you will participate in June's Go ahead honey, it's gluten-free event. I'm hosting it. Check it out http://simplygluten-free.blogspot.com/2009/05/go-ahead-honey-its-gluten-free-june.html
Elana,
Thank you for participating in Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten Free! I just wanted to set the record straight and let you know that although the wonderful Emilia of Gluten Free Day is hosting this month, it is in fact a monthly event with many hosts - next month is hosted by Carol at Simply Gluten Free.
If you, or any of your readers would like to host a month just pop over to my blog and drop me a comment, they don't even have to have a gluten free blog, just be prepared to try out something that is gluten free.
x x x
I love recipes that are gluten free by nature, and almond meal cakes are a great example. The orange flavour must be beautifully intense with whole oranges included. You've taken a lovely picture too!
Thanks everyone for more lovely comments!
Hi Elana!
I have been wanting to make this for so long, and after I saw yours I decided to dig in. I referenced your recipe as well as two cookbooks that I used. Thanks for turning me onto Claudia Roden's books. I love the history of food and culture.
Amazing! The first gf cake I've made that doesn't taste gf. Mine was done cooking at about 35 min and only about half of it cooled in the pan for for the full 2 hours:) So glad I found your site Elana