I really didn’t mean to let such a gap open up between posts – it’s been almost three months since my last recipe over here, I’m sorry. It felt like the longer it got, the more inertia there was to overcome to write something up here again. And it’s been busy. Ugh. The worst, most boring excuse in the world, I know, especially when evenings spent sleepily watching Killing Eve and Game of Thrones took priority. Six weeks in London slid past far too fast – crammed around weekdays of hospital placement were dinners out blowing any scrap of a budget I had, bargain show tickets (Nigel Slater’s Toast, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and Come From Away), Sundays spent perusing various markets and afternoons spent traversing London – walking through Kensington, Notting Hill, Marylebone, up through Hackney and the canals, round my local Peckham and Dulwich. Plus fleeting trips to Dublin and Amsterdam, the latter of which I published a travel guide on here.
I arrived back in Melbourne with a thump, straight into my next rotation, intensive care. Busy and confronting and fascinating and difficult all at once. It was (is) job application season too for next year, with CVs and cover letters to be written, documents compiled and the growing sense of incredulity that my six years as a student are all but over. And to bring you completely up to speed, I’m now spending a couple of weeks back home in New Zealand on my mid-year break. Recharging amongst lots of recipe developing (or just making an utter mess of the kitchen).
That brings me right round to this cake. It’s a whole orange, dark chocolate & almond cake, rich, fudgey and not too sweet. The chocolate is perfumed with oranges, boiled whole for almost an hour until your kitchen smells like a warm citrus orchard (or what I imagine that to be). They are then combined with olive oil and blitzed in the Vitamix jug (or alternative blender or food processor) until silky smooth. Add the eggs and dry ingredients and briefly blend again, as your sunny yellow blend turns a deep chocolate brown. Meanwhile, the base of your cake tin is lined with honey-coated flaked almonds, sweet and nutty, so when the cake is finished cooking and is flipped, the ombre almonds end up on top. It’s impressive but easy, gluten and dairy-free for anyone with intolerances, and only gets better over a few days. The high powered Vitamix blender (I have the Ascent) makes it incredibly easy with minimal dishes, and also means there is no residual grittiness of orange peel that I have previously experienced with other blenders – it blends it absolutely smooth in seconds.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this cake and I promise I’ll be back here sooner than three months time! If there’s anything in particular you’d like to see more (or less) of here please let me know.
This post is sponsored by Vitamix. I received compensation, but as always, all opinions and content are my own. Thank you so much for supporting the companies that support The Brick Kitchen.
- 40 g butter (or non-dairy spread) diced
- 70 g soft brown sugar
- 30 g honey
- 120 g flaked/sliced almonds
- 400 g whole oranges (approx 2 small)
- 80 ml olive oil (1/3 cup)
- 4 eggs
- 60 g dark chocolate melted
- 250 g caster sugar (1 1/4 cups)
- 65 g dutch cocoa powder (1/2 cup)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 170 g ground almonds (1 2/3 cups)
-
Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm round baking tin with baking paper. Use a non-springform tin if possible.
-
Place the oranges in a deep saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 45 minutes. Remove from the water and set aside to cool slightly.
-
For the almond topping, combine the butter, brown sugar and honey in a small saucepan. Melt to combine. Add the flaked almonds and stir to coat the almonds. Transfer into the prepared tin and spread out into an even layer, pressing firmly into the corners of the tin. Set aside while you make the cake batter.
-
Cut the very top and bottom off each boiled orange and discard. Cut the oranges into quarters. Place into the Vitamix jug with the olive oil. Blitz until smooth.
-
Add the sugar, eggs and dark chocolate. Blitz to fully combine.
-
Add the cocoa powder and baking powder, and again blitz to combine.
-
Add the ground almonds and blitz to just combine.
-
Pour the cake batter over the almonds in the prepared tin.
-
Bake at 180° for about 1 hour, or until the top springs back to touch and a skewer inserted comes out with a few crumbs attached (if you used a spring form tin, set something in the oven underneath to catch any drips).
-
Set aside to cool for 30 minutes. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack or serving plate so the almonds are on top and remove the baking paper carefully. If any almonds fall off, just set them back into place. Leave to cool completely before serving. Cut with a serrated knife for sharp slices through the almond topping.
Hi Claudia, I love a whole orange cake and this looks amazing! Wanted to ask though is all that Caster Sugar necessary? any idea what would happen if I left it out? I’d add the brown sugar for a little sweetness but not so keen on the Caster Sugar.
Thanks!
Hi Verna! I think the caster sugar is probably necessary as it isn’t a very sweet cake anyway and it needs to balance out the bitterness of the oranges. Leaving it out probably wouldn’t work, but you could try cutting it down to 3/4 cup. Brown sugar has exactly the same healthy properties as caster sugar so not sure why you would use brown sugar over caster sugar? You could substitute brown sugar though and that would be fine. Hope that helps!
Hi there, I read that the recipe was dairy free but note the ingredients list has butter as the first ingredient.
Did you use a non dairy product instead?
Thanks
Kirstin
Hi Kirstin! I guess I was thinking about the cake itself when I wrote that, but yes you can absolutely use a non-dairy spread (like an olive oil based spread) or even just a vegetable oil instead of butter for the topping. Hope that helps! Thanks
Hi I am sorry to post a negative comment but I would not make this cake again.It took twice as long as you said to cook in the 20cm tin.The almonds on the bottom were burnt and the cake after all that time was still raw in the middle
Hi Shirley, I’m really sorry to hear that. I tested it many times and others have made it successfully so I’m not sure where you went wrong – did you use scales to measure out all the ingredients, even the oranges and especially the dry ingredients? It is quite a rich, almost mousse-like textured cake, so a skewer should still come out with a few crumbs on when it is cooked but the surface of the cake will bounce back to touch. Another issue could be the oven.. have you had any issues with other recipes?
Hello! I just made the whole orange chocolate almond cake yesterday and it was simply lovely! The texture and taste was great! Still, when I was baking the cake, I had a similar issue as one of the previous commentators. The cake was still wet after 45 minutes and required about 2x time in the oven. Also, the heat may have been a bit too high since my cake cracked on top and crusted. I am thinking that maybe my “two small oranges” may not have been as small as yours 🙂 This would have added additional moisture to the cake. I used two navel oranges for the recipe, but I wonder if one would have been sufficient. Do you know the amount in grams for your oranges? Also, maybe it could also work baking longer time (60 min) for a lower temperature? That being said, the taste was AMAZING and I would definitely make this cake again. Still can’t believe it is (mostly) gluten free!
Thanks Fran! The measurement for the oranges is on the recipe – mine were 400g total (so 200g per orange). That could definitely have been a factor. Sorry to hear it required so much more time for you – I’ll make it again soon to see if I can work out why. Everyone’s oven temperature differs quite a lot so it can be hard to make sure it’s accurate. And it is fully gluten free I believe! x