Baking cakes without flour

[shewhomust]

For artistatlarge and sinfulkitten, by request.

I use two recipes taken from Claudia Roden's Book of Middle Eastern Food (one of my favourite cookbooks; I have worn out one copy, and the replacement is looking the worse for wear!). She describes them as Sephardic in origin, and intended for Passover (hence the absence of flour).

Orange and Almond Cake

2 large oranges
6 eggs
250g / 8 oz almonds
250g / 8 oz sugar (I use 5 oz fructose)
1 teaspoon baking powder (check for wheat free; trust no-one!)
Butter and more almonds / cornflour, for the tin

Prepare tin (preferably with removable base): line, butter, dredge with almonds / cornflour. Set oven to moderately hot (190° c / 375° F / mark 5).

Wash and boil the whole oranges in a little water until soft (nearly 2 hours, she says, or use a pressure cooker, in which case half an hour). Let them cool, then cut open, remove pips, and reduce to pulp in a blender or by hand.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add all other ingredients, pour into tin, bake - the recipe says about an hour or longer. In my experience it's longer, and still gives quite a moist cake.

Chocolate Cake

250g / 8 oz bitter / plain chocolate
2 tablespoons milk (to melt the chocolate; if you'd rather use a liqueur / spirits, go ahead)
120g / 4 oz ground almonds (or use a proportion of ground walnuts / hazelnuts)
6 tablespoons sugar (or less fructose)
6 eggs, separated
Butter and more almonds / cornflour, for the tin

Prepare tin (preferably with removable base): line, butter, dredge with almonds / cornflour. Set oven to moderate (180° c / 350° F / mark 4).

Melt the chocolate with the milk in a double saucepan / bowl over boiling water. Off the heat, stir in the nuts, sugar and egg yolks. Beat well - if the mixture is too stiff, slacken it off with a little milk, or the air from the egg whites will be knocked out of it, and the cake denser than in should be. Beat egg whites until stiff, and fold in.

Pour into tin, bake. Again, the recipe says three quarters of an hour to an hour - I think it's usually a bit longer. You can dredge sugar over the top when it's cool, if you want to.

She also gives a recipe for Coconut Cake, which also sounds good, if you like coconut.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Note from the realms of Great Coincidence: the cake I made at the weekend - for my dairy-free friends, as it happens - is more or less a hybrid of these two. A chocolate, orange and almond cake, with the boiled oranges (one hour is enough, I find, in a simple lidded saucepan) and cocoa and lots of real chocolate too. And an apricot glaze. It's yummy, and I've been eating it all week and there's still a lot left (a narrow slice is plenty, I find). Happily, it seems to be surviving the passage of time in near-perfect condition, thus far...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's one of the virtues of these rather dense cakes, that they do last well. Lightness is overrated, I think.

And thanks for the timing on the no-pressure cooking. Two hours did seem an awful lot...