Serves: 6-8
Prep time: 50 mins (includes whole orange boiling time)
Cook time: 55-60mins (+ cooling time)
Ingredients
2-3 medium oranges, fresh whole with rind on – approx 600g in total
1¼ tsp baking powder
6 large eggs
1 cup caster sugar
2¾ cups almond meal
2 tbsp marmalade (or honey)
100g almonds, toasted
Basil Crème Fraiche
1 cup crème fraiche
6 basil leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
Method
To prepare the oranges, place oranges in a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil over medium to high heat. Boil for 10 minutes. Drain and repeat by putting the oranges back in the pot, cover with cold water and boil again for 10 minutes. Drain, then repeat one final time. (You should have boiled the oranges 3 x 10 minutes).
Rinse the oranges, then allow to cool slightly. Roughly chop, removing any seeds and allow cool completely.
Preheat oven to 160°C (140°C fan). Grease and line a 20-22cm cake pan with baking/parchment paper.
Place chopped oranges in a food processor and blitz in short bursts, scraping down the sides as needed until it’s pureed into a marmalade consistency. It doesn’t need to be completely smooth.
To the orange mixture, add almond meal, eggs, baking powder and sugar and blitz for 5 – 10 seconds on high until combined.
Pour into prepared cake pan. Bake 55- 60 minutes until the surface is golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Cool fully in cake pan. Unless using loose base pan, cover surface with baking paper to help you turn it out (cake is sticky so may stick to your hand and tear surface otherwise.)
To make the basil crème fraiche, mix all the ingredients together.
To serve, spread over marmalade (or honey) in a thin layer and sprinkle with toasted almonds and dust with icing sugar and serve with a good dollop of basil crème fraiche.
