Clementine Cake

A friend of mine asked me to make something without flour this weekend, so I resorted to an old faithful that has only ever gone wrong once in all the times I have baked it.  I was sure that it would be in my Nigella's Domestic Goddess recipe book, but it wasn't so I had to go on the search again (I lost my original baking bible - a small notebook that I had put together containing all my favourite recipes in the house move two years ago and never bothered to replace it).  I found the recipe for the cake here and though I do say so myself it turned out wonderfully.

I followed the recipe to the letter, I soaked the clementines for 2 hours in gently simmering water and then I made use of my Kenwood to blend the clementines to a pulp (pith, skin and everything but the pips).  While the clementine liquid was still rather warm (this could have been disastrous but for sheer luck I feel) I added it to the eggs, ground almonds and sugar and then very quickly poured it into two greased and lined tins and then right into the oven on two trays close together and close to the top.

In the oven rising like a champion

 
As I used two smaller tins rather than the large springform that is recommended (I did this for a reason) I found that it took 40 minutes rather than the whole 60 and the cake was moist, dense and wonderful. I did cover it with crumpled greaseproof paper for the last 10 minutes but as you can see it did colour slightly more on the top than perhaps it should.  To get a less 'done' appearance I will definitely put the greaseproof on the top for the last half of the cooking time and then it will hopefully retain the wonderful orange-y colour that it should have.

The finished article

 I served it as slender slices - being a rather dense moist cake a little goes a very long way - with quenelles of delicately vanilla-scented Chantilly cream.  I think that perhaps the season for Clementines is not quite right yet, the cake was very lightly flavoured and I would have preferred it to be a little bit less sweet and slightly more sharp.

The Perfect Plate!