Passover week 2020 - crushed almond and orange cake

Passover week 2020 - crushed almond and orange cake

• 31 Mar 2020

Welcome to Day 2 of Passover Week 2020. Claudia Roden's orange and almond cake has been around for a long time and this cake is a variation of that recipe. I've made the cake twice now using both oil so that it's pareve for Pesach and also using butter. I have to say I preferred the flavour of the cake made with butter so I'm sharing that recipe with you today. 



If you'd like to make the oil version just swap the unsalted butter with 1/2 cup oil neutral flavoured oil. Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy before drizzling in the oil, then continuing with the rest of the recipe.



Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake or a small loaf. If you'd like to make a 23cm cake then double all the ingredients. The baking time will stay the same. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional gas oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Crushed almond and orange cake
Ingredients
1 large orange 
125 grams unsalted butter, softened
150 grams caster sugar
4 eggs, separated
75 g Passover baking mix (superfine matzo meal and potato starch)
75 g almond meal

Decoration
1 – 2 tbs apricot jam or marmalade, warmed and thinned with water
Toasted flaked almonds

Method
Prick the orange a few times. Place into a microwave safe bowl with 1 tbs water. Loosely cover the bowl, then microwave on high for 3-4 minutes until the orange is soft. Leave to cool a little then quarter the orange and remove the seeds. Process until smooth in a food processor, then weigh out 150 grams of orange pulp.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 17cm tin or small loaf tin. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks beating until combined. Combine the Passover baking mix and the almonds in a small bowl then add alternately with the pulp to the egg and sugar mixture.

Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form and carefully fold into the batter. Pour into the prepared tin. Lower the oven temperature to 180°C and bake for an hour or until the cake tests cooked with a skewer. Cool the cake on a rack. When completely cold turn out of the tin and peel off the lining paper. 



To decorate, brush over the warmed jam and top with a few flaked almonds.



This a really lovely moist cake, almost pudding like in texture and bursting with orange flavour.

See you all again tomorrow with some more baking for Passover Week 2020.

Bye for now,

Jillian