Nigella Lawson Flourless Chocolate Orange Cake

As mentioned in my previous blog post, my reading friend adapted this cake to a orange coconut cake, but once she'd mentioned it I couldn't get it out of my head I had to make the original. I used coconut sugar instead of regular to make it a bit lower on the glycemic index, but otherwise kept it the same.

This cake has one strange technique and a few strange ingredients - you must boil oranges a few hours (and then you use the entire thing, peel and all.) Since the "flour" is all almonds, you can see some nobbly bits. The end result is not overly chocolatey but reminded me more of a gingerbread in texture.

Flourless Chocolate Orange Cake
(recipe from Nigella Lawson as seen on Food.com)

2 small thin-skinned oranges, approx 375g total weight (or 1 large)*
6 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
200 g ground almonds**
250 g caster sugar***
50 g cocoa****

1. Put the whole orange or oranges in a pan with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours or until soft.
2. Drain, and when cool, cut the oranges in half and remove any big pips.
3. Then pulp everything - pith, peel and all - in a food processor.
4. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C (350F). Butter and line a 20cm springform tin.
5. Add the eggs, baking powder, baking soda, almonds, sugar and cocoa to the orange in the food processor. Run the motor until you have a cohesive cake mixture, but slightly knobbly with the flecks of puréed orange.
6. Pour and scrape into the cake tin and bake for an hour, by which time a cake tester should come out pretty well clean. Check after 45 minutes because you may have to cover with foil to prevent the cake burning before it is cooked through, or indeed it may need a little less than an hour; it all depends on your oven.
7. Leave the cake to get cool in the tin, on a cooling rack. When the cake is cold you can take it out of the tin. Decorate with strips of orange peel or coarsely grated zest if you so wish, but it is darkly beautiful in its plain, unadorned state.

*I used two navel oranges
**I used 2 cups almond flour
***I used 3/4 cup coconut sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar
****1/2 cup