Meat-free Archives

Butternut recipes

Cheesy polenta

25 minutes

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Brinjal recipes

Whole baked cauliflower with cheese sauce

1 hour

Gnocchi recipes

Danilo Acquisto’s gorgonzola Napoletana gnocchi

Lentil recipes

Turkish red lentil soup

40 minutes

Middle-Eastern orange cake with spiced syrup

Difficulty Easy

Prep Time 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking time

Cooking Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

1-2 thin-skinned oranges (about 375 g)
6 free-range eggs
1 t baking powder
1⁄2 t bicarbonate of soda
200 g almond flour
250 g caster sugar
2 t ground coriander
2 t ground cinnamon
A drop vanilla extract

For the spiced syrup:

200 g sugar
1 cup water
1 orange, zested
6 cardamom pods, cracked
2 cinnamon sticks, broken
2 star anise

Method

Grease a 20 cm springform pan and line with baking paper. Put the whole oranges into a pot with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours, or until soft. Check occasionally and add more water if necessary. Drain and, when cool, roughly chop the oranges, discarding any seeds. Blend everything – pith, peel and all – in a food processor. Turn into a large bowl.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Add the eggs, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, almond flour, caster sugar, spices and vanilla to the orange purée in the bowl. Beat together. Pour into the cake tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. If it needs to bake longer, cover with foil to prevent the cake from burning. Bake for a further 5–10 minutes, or until done. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin. Remove when cold.

To make the spice syrup, bring all the ingredients to the boil and reduce until syrupy. Spoon over the cooled cake.

Cook's note: There are many ways to make this delicious cake but I particularly love this gluten- and dairy-free version adapted from the Hey Bernice! blog (heybernice.com) which is finished off with a spiced syrup starring cinnamon, star anise and cardamom.

Browse more cake recipes here

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Middle-Eastern orange cake with spiced syrup

Middle-Eastern orange cake with spiced syrup

Ingredients

Method