a lovely, light, delicious cake with rich, deep orange and orange peel tastes. People adore it, and it’s quite simple to make! Slice the dish into wedges and top with ice cream or whipped cream.
| Prep Time: | 2 hrs 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Additional Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 4 hrs |
| Servings: | 16 |
| Yield: | 1 10-inch round cake |
Ingredients
- 2 whole oranges with peel
- 6 eggs
- 1 pinch saffron powder (Optional)
- 1 ¼ cups white sugar
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ¼ cups finely ground almonds (almond meal)
- 1 teaspoon finely chopped candied orange peel (Optional)
Instructions
- Place the oranges in a large saucepan, and add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, and boil for 2 hours over medium heat. Check occasionally to make sure they do not boil dry. Allow the oranges to cool, then cut them open and remove the seeds. Process in a blender or food processor to a coarse pulp.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Thoroughly grease a 10-inch round cake pan and line it with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together using an electric mixer until thick and pale, about 10 minutes. Mix in baking powder and saffron (optional). Stir in the pureed oranges. Gently fold in almond meal and candied orange peel (optional); pour batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake until a small knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Allow the cake to cool in the pan. Tap out onto a serving plate when cool.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 174 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 21 g |
| Cholesterol | 70 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 42 mg |
| Sugars | 18 g |
| Fat | 9 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This cake is sunshiny light. I cut the sugar in half, used a teaspoon of vanilla, omitted the optional ingredients, used 4 eggs and 4 tablespoons of egg whites from a carton. I baked it in a 10” springform pan for 45 minutes , after checking it at 35 minutes with a thin knife blade. I added a glaze made with fresh squeezed orange juice, icing sugar and butter. Moist and delicious.
I have been making this recipe for many years and it is my standby foolproof cake. I always make a citrus sauce to accompany it. Simply take fine strips of zest off a couple of oranges (and lemons, if you have them), juice about 6 oranges and a couple of lemons with a cup of sugar, bring to a gentle boil on the hob, stirring occasionally till the juice is reduced to about half. Lately I have been adding toasted crushed cardamom seed – try serving warmed slices of cake with sauce drizzled over, garnish with zest strips and a dollop of cream. Classy!
Love this cake; very moist & stays moist. Even my picky guys couldn’t stay out of it. Especially good with lightly sweetened strawberries and whipped topping. Flavor improves the second day (if it lasts that long!). The only real change I made was to add a pinch of salt. That said, I must say, it popped up under a Passover search – error! For Passover, I omitted the baking powder. Just beat the egg whites separately & folded them in at the end.
Made the recipe with revisions: -To cook the oranges, I peeled with a vegetable peeler and mashed up the pulp in a sauce pan, then cooked on the stove for about 30 minutes. Saved a lot of time boiling whole oranges. Was able to remove a lot of pith that way before food processing -I used 1/2 almond flour, 1/2 other gluten-free flour, added 1 tsp. vanilla extract and candied ginger instead of candied orange peel. -Split between 3-9″ square pans and baked for 25 minutes: cakes brown and start pulling away from the edges when done. -Frosted with chocolate ganache laced with a couple tablespoons of triple sec. Deeee-licious!
It turned out perfectly!
I threw away most of the peel and pith, so it wasn’t tart. Make sure you get rid of all the seeds.I added a little candied ginger cut into small pieces.
I have made the cake with 4-6 eggs successfully. I is a favorite for family and friends.
The best!!! My kids insist on this every Passover(I omit the baking powder, it’s a bit dense but delicious!)I use organic blood oranges. The cake disappears immediately every time!
Excellent taste and easy It did brown too much on the top before it finished cooking. Bottom didn’t brown.
I will definitely be making this again! The only change I made was substituting the candied orange peel for crystallized ginger, which I had on hand. The saffron added a nice depth to the flavor and the texture of the cake was very moist but still fairly light. I’m pretty sure that came from beating the eggs and sugar for the full ten minutes. I found it a little too sweet so next time I’ll reduce that a bit and bake it in a water bath like a cheesecake so it doesn’t sink so much in the centre. And it tastes even better the next day!
I replaced almond flour with toasted oat flour, added half a teaspoon of lemon extract, baked for 40 min. Eating it made me feel very sophisticated. There is just something about saffron!
my daughter in law loves this; my son in law, who is not gluten free, loved it also; so moist
Surprisingly and unexpectedly juicy and tasty cake.
I was so apprehensive about making this cake since it was flourless but wow! It was fantastic! I used clementine oranges since they were seedless eliminated the need to trim the inside white, bitter membrane. Also, instead of using saffron I used a wee bit of crystallized ginger and about 1/2 tsp.of falernum. (Old bartender here!) and added 6 or 7 whole cloves to the oranges boil water. I squeezed out much of the moisture from the pulp as well because it was very wet. Topped the whole thing with a cream cheese and orange marmalade mixture as suggested in another review. It turned out very moist. I served it chilled to the recipient. She and her husband ate the whole cake between the two of them that night. Wonderful cake! I seldom go through one of those little mini cases that they often sell clementines in so I was wondering (since the boiling process takes so long) if the boiled and processed oranges can be frozen for baking at a later date? Has anyone tried?
Made it for my daughter. Very good, very rich. Goes well with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
After I made this cake I decided I wouldn’t make again purely because it took too long. Than my friends came over for cards and I served it; it was amazing. Light, moist and wonderful. I made exactly like recipe except no frosting or saffron. 1 1/2 c pulp was perfect and I used a 10″ spring form pan. Do wait til it completely cools to take it out or it will split (mine did but pushed back easily). I did put a mild citrus glaze on; than whipped cream per request. I should give it 4 stars cause it took so long including the candied fruit! Buy the dang candied fruit; it makes a difference!
Just simply….lovely. Everyone loved it including my celiac friend. Used 3 tangelos which gave me approx 1 1/2 c of pulp and still scraped abit of the white pith out to reduce bitterness. You really need to boil the oranges for 2 hours to properly soften the peel and also beat the eggs till they are almost tripled in size. The 2nd time my 3 tangelos yielded more than 2 cups and the cake was a little too wet compared to my first attempt. I did not use the saffron nor candied fruit and it was excellent without them. Will make this again and again and again!
I add 1 teaspoon almond extract and it really makes a difference. This is a great cake and gets rave reviews from people who love orange. People who don’t like orange in baking do not like it at all but then that’s their problem – ha! But I warn people beforehand so they don’t waste it. Thanks for this recipe!!
This was a winner for our gluten free daughter-in-law for Easter. It was moist and very orangey flavor. Didn’t have candied orange pieces (out of season and didn’t have time to make them). Also didn’t have frosting shown in the picture. However, I did use a little whipped cream on mine. Light and healthy and I will make again! Plan to use what is left for a coffee treat with friends.
Yes, I made changes. This recipe was in my search for kosher Passover recipes. But it isn’t kosher because of the baking powder. So, the second time I baked this cake, I omitted the baking powder, and it baked PERFECTLY! Omitting the baking powder is the ONLY change I made to the recipe! I also “borrowed” a lemon glaze recipe, but changed everything lemon to orange, to top the cake which everyone liked very much! YES, I will bake this for years to come! B H
Very tasty. I used organic naval oranges from California. The skins were not very thick for this recipe. Three small/medium size oranges were plenty. I did discard some of the peel, for fear of the bitterness coming through too much. I’m glad I did. I added a TBLS of crystallized ginger also, instead of the candied orange peel. Since I did not have a 10″ cake pan, I used my spring form pan, and it turned out great. Photos are posted.