Valencia Orange Cake from Little Kitchen Around the World

Ok now you might have noticed that once I get a cookbook I get a little obsessed by it. What? Me? Obsessed? Yes. Especially the biscuit and cake section of any book. I will make a tonne of recipes all in one go then put it on the shelf and use later. I’ve been a bit like that with Little Kitchen Around the World. It’s due out tomorrow (1 September) and is definitely one to look out for. The Valencia Orange Cake recipe was a huge hit here. It is essentially an orange and almond cake and you can make it gluten free if you wish just by leaving out the flour.

I’d always wanted to make one as I was curious how it would taste considering you use the whole orange. Skin and all. And I’ve got to say delicious! Beautiful in colour and texture and I kept it in the fridge for a couple of days as we ate our way through it. Retro daddy and Finn were also huge fans and they’re not really into the sweet stuff.

Hate to say it but the thermomix made light work of the cake and made the almond meal and entire cake. You can even boil your oranges in the bowl if you want but I wanted to follow the recipe from the book and then convert to the thermomix.  Definitely give this a go. Making your own almond meal makes the cake more budget friendly and the accountant in me noticed that it was $10/kg cheaper for whole almonds compared to the almond meal. And I hope you store your nuts and almond meal in your freezer – it makes them last longer. Great tip I picked up from cooking schoool many, many years ago.

Valencia Orange Cake from Little Kitchen Around the World

2-3 large oranges (approx. 650g in total) and organic if you can as you eat the skin

1 Tsp butter for greasing

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 cups almond meal

3/4 self raising flour

1 1/2 Tbsp icing sugar (to dust over finished cake)

The first step is to place your oranges in a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Simmer for 45 minutes then remove from the water and leave to cool. I actually did this step in the morning and came back to them later. Cut off the little bit of stem of your orange and then slice each orange down the middle and remove the white pith and pips. Now process if your food processor (or thermomix for 1 minutes on speed 5) until smooth and there are no lumps in there.

If you want to make your own almond meal then I placed about 400g of whole almonds in the thermomix bowl and processed by pressing the turbo button a couple of times until I had the right consistency. This will make more than 2 cups but just freeze the rest in a ziplock bag or airtight container. If you buy your almond meal your cake won’t have the brown specks I have from the almond skins and will look more like the picture in the book.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Now whisk your eggs and sugar for 3 minutes until light and creamy. I did 2 minutes in the Thermomix on speed 4. Add baking powder, almond meal, flour and stir until all combined. In the Thermomix I did this for 30 seconds on speed 3. Now add your orange mixture and mix well.  20 seconds on speed 4 in the Thermomix for me.

Pour into greased and lined round cake tin and bake on middle shelf of oven for about 40 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Remove from oven and leave cake in tin to cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove cake from tin and leave to cool completely. Of course I didn’t do that beccause I just wanted to get straight in there and eat that delicious cake so I left it to cool 5 minutes then removed the tin and started eating. Serve cake with the icing sugar sifted over the top and a big dollop of whipped cream. I’d go the King Island Cream to really blow your diet out of the water!