I’ve been playing around with orange and almond cakes for sometime and after many, many attempts, I’ve finally cracked it! It’s light, fluffy, and just the right amount of zesty.
Little side note... When I post dessert recipes I quite often get asked ‘so this is a hearty dessert right? Is this guilt-free?...’
My answer: It’s a cake. It’s not meant to be the most nutritious thing in the world. It’s meant to be baked with love and savoured and enjoyed and then enjoyed some more. And to me, there’s nothing unhealthy about that.
Am I saying it’s okay to eat it every day for breakfast? Nope! But that doesn’t mean a slice can’t be enjoyed from time to time as part of a balanced, healthy diet.
But what I will say about this cake is that it uses only a few simple ingredients. Which is what I love about home baking, as opposed to a shit supermarket or mass-produced cakes that often contain lots of unnecessary and highly processed ingredients. This is the kind of cake your grandma would recognise as a cake. I.e. the best type of cake...
Ingredients
zest of 3 oranges 4 free-range or organic eggs 160g sugar 100ml extra virgin olive oil (+ extra for greasing) 175g almond meal 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp vanilla essence For the yoghurt icing: 1/2 cup of natural, plain yoghurt 1 tbsp icing sugar zest of one orange flaked almonds for decoration (optional)
Method
Preheat your oven to 180°C
Whisk the eggs, orange zest, vanilla and sugar in a bowl.
Add the extra virgin olive oil and mix.
Gradually fold in the almond meal. Then add the baking powder.
Pour the cake mixture into a well-greased cake tin and bake for around 45-50 minutes (or till a skewer comes out the centre of the cake clean).
To make the yoghurt icing, add the yoghurt, icing sugar and the zest of one orange to a bowl and mix together.
Once the cake is ready, remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Wait until the cake has cooled completely before icing! Decorate with the yoghurt icing and top with additional orange slices and flaked almonds.
