upside down blood orange and almond cake

upside down blood orange and almond cake

• 3 Oct 2016

Last weekend, I found 3 blood oranges in my crisper and decided to make a cake. 



I put my thinking cap on and decided to combine 2 Ottolenghi cake recipes I'd made before hoping the final product would work out. You can't go wrong with an Ottolenghi recipe but I kept my finger crossed just in case.



I put together the topping from the upside down orange and polenta cake with the base from the clementine syrup cake to make this hybrid.



I made the cake in my little loaf tin as this was a cake I wasn't planning to share.



Here's the recipe for you. 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, so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.



Upside Down Blood Orange and Almond Cake - makes a small loaf or 16cm cake.

Caramel topping
45g caster sugar
1 tbs water
10g unsalted butter, diced
2 small blood oranges

Cake
100g unsalted butter 
150g caster sugar 
140g ground almonds 
2 large eggs, beaten 
50g self-raising flour, sifted pinch salt

Glaze (optional)
2 tbs orange marmalade or apricot jam
½ tbs water

Orange Caramel Layer
Lightly grease a loaf tin, and line the sides and base with baking paper. Bring sugar and water to a boil in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then wash down any sugar crystals from side of pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Boil, without stirring, swirling pan occasionally so caramel colours evenly, until dark amber. Remove from heat and add butter, swirling pan until incorporated, then carefully but quickly pour caramel into cake pan, tilting pan to coat evenly.

Grate the rind from the oranges and reserve for cake. Cut remaining peel from the oranges with a paring knife. Cut oranges crosswise into ¼ inch thick slices. Remove any seeds and arrange slices in 1 layer over caramel.

Cake
Preheat the oven to 175C° (conventional) with rack in middle. Put the butter, the sugar and the orange rind into a bowl and mix. Do not work the mix too much or incorporate much air. Add half the ground almonds and continue mixing to fold through. Add the eggs gradually, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl as you go. Add the remaining almonds, flour and salt and work until the mix is smooth. Spread batter evenly over orange slices (preferably with an offset spatula). Bake until a wooden toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool in pan 5-10 minutes. Invert cake onto a cake plate and discard parchment.

The cake, without glaze, can be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well at room temperature. The cake will keep for a week. if you do decide to glaze the cake, do it just before serving

Glaze
Heat marmalade or apricot jam with water in a small saucepan until melted. Strain through a sieve into a small bowl. Brush top of cake with some of glaze. Serve warm or at room temperature.


I have some of this cake left in the cake tin and I can tell you that its absolutely delicious. The orange caramel layer tastes a little like marmalade whilst the cake layer is very moist and bursting with flavour. It's an absolute winner!

See you all again later this week with a shopshoot.

Bye for now,

Jillian