Clementine Cake

With citrus season on its way in, you really have no excuse not to try this cake.  It is beyond easy to make, lasts for ages without going stale, uses up any tired citrus you have around, has an extremely simple list of ingredients AND is both gluten free and fatless (apart from the eggs).  It is a Nigella Lawson masterpiece, and apparently is the most popular recipe out of her first cookbook How to Eat. There is a chocolate variation, but I prefer the original in its pulpy purity.

When we are running the teas and coffees after church we bring several varieties of cakes.  This one is just so easy to throw together that I regularly make it knowing I'll then have enough energy to be adventurous with the other treats I make rather than exhausting myself with the first offering.

All you do is boil a few clementines or oranges (you can even use lemons) for a couple of hours, drain them, and wait until they are cool enough to handle.  I decided to boil up an orange I had already zested, which is less than ideal but saved me from throwing it out.

Then I cut them in half to remove any seeds and threw them into the food processor.  A magimix is not essential here; I have done this by hand before.  You just want them roughly chopped.

This is how mine looked after I pulped it:

Then in went ground almonds, sugar, 6 eggs, and some baking powder.  That's it.  No creaming, nothing complicated, just a bit of light stirring.

Until you have this:

Then you pour it into a springform tin:

And it comes out looking like this:

It doesn't look impressive at first, but it is just so light, moist and full of citrus.  Seriously, just go make it now.

The like to the recipe on her site (with a printable option) is here: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/clementine-cake-2559

Or just read it below:

Ingredients

• 375 grams clementines (approx. 3 medium-sized ones)
• 6 large eggs
• 225 grams white sugar
• 250 grams ground almonds
• 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

Method

1. Put the clementines in a pan with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours. Drain and, when cool, cut each clementine in half and remove the pips. Dump the clementines - skins, pith, fruit and all - and give a quick blitz in a food processor (or by hand, of course). Preheat the oven to gas mark 5/190ºC/375ºF. Butter and line a 21cm / 8 inch Springform tin.
2. You can then add all the other ingredients to the food processor and mix. Or, you can beat the eggs by hand adding the sugar, almonds and baking powder, mixing well, then finally adding the pulped oranges.
3. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for an hour, when a skewer will come out clean; you'll probably have to cover with foil or greaseproof after about 40 minutes to stop the top burning. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, on a rack, but in the tin. When the cake's cold, you can take it out of the tin. I think this is better a day after it's made, but I don't complain about eating it at any time.
4. I've also made this with an equal weight of oranges, and with lemons, in which case I increase the sugar to 250g / 2¼ cups and slightly anglicise it, too, by adding a glaze made of icing sugar mixed to a paste with lemon juice and a little water.
5. Additional information - for gluten free make sure that the baking powder is gluten free.