Clementine Cake [recipe]
I love this recipe for Clementine Cake from Nigella Lawson, and I recently mentioned it in a fic. I thought I would share the recipe, in case anyone would like to try it out!
The following is from here, and published in her cookbook How To Eat: Pleasures and Principles of Good Food.
Clementine Cake by Nigella Lawson
Another fixed item in my Christmas repertoire is my clementine cake. This is suitable for any number of reasons. First, it's made of the clementines which are seasonal. Then there's the fact that you need to cook them for 2 hours: you're more likely to be hanging around the house and to feel in the mood for this sort of thing during the Christmas period. It's incredibly easy to make; even if you're stressed out, it won't topple you over into nervous collapse. And, finally, it's such an accommodating kind of cake: it keeps well, indeed it gets better after a few days, and it is perfect either as a pudding, with some crème fraiche, or as cake to be eaten with seasonally sociable visitors in the mid-morning or afternoon. What more do you want?
It was only after I did this a few times - the route it took to get to me was circuitous, as these things can be - that I realised it was more or less Claudia Roden's orange and almond cake.
It is a wonderfully damp, dense and aromatic flourless cake: it tastes like one of those sponges you drench, while cooling, with syrup, only you don't have to. This is the easiest cake I know.
[U.S. measurements; see link above for metric measurements]
4-5 clementines (about 1 pound total weight)
6 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 and one-third cups ground almonds
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
Put the clementines in a pot with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours. Drain and, when cool, cut each clementine in half and remove the pips. Dump the clementines - skins, pith, fruit and all - and give a quick blitz. Then tip in all the remaining ingredients and pulse to a pulp. Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Butter and line an 8 inch springform pan.
Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake for an hour, when a skewer will come out clean; you'll probably have to cover with foil or greaseproof after about 40 minutes to stop the top burning. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, on a rack, but in the pan. When the cake's cold, you can take it out of the tin. I think this is better a day after it's made, but I don't complain about eating it any time.
I've also made this with an equal weight of oranges, and with lemons, in which case I increase the sugar to one and one-quarter cups and slightly anglicize it, too, by adding a glaze made of confectioner's sugar mixed to a paste with lemon juice and a little water.
Enjoy!
The following is from here, and published in her cookbook How To Eat: Pleasures and Principles of Good Food.
Clementine Cake by Nigella Lawson
Another fixed item in my Christmas repertoire is my clementine cake. This is suitable for any number of reasons. First, it's made of the clementines which are seasonal. Then there's the fact that you need to cook them for 2 hours: you're more likely to be hanging around the house and to feel in the mood for this sort of thing during the Christmas period. It's incredibly easy to make; even if you're stressed out, it won't topple you over into nervous collapse. And, finally, it's such an accommodating kind of cake: it keeps well, indeed it gets better after a few days, and it is perfect either as a pudding, with some crème fraiche, or as cake to be eaten with seasonally sociable visitors in the mid-morning or afternoon. What more do you want?
It was only after I did this a few times - the route it took to get to me was circuitous, as these things can be - that I realised it was more or less Claudia Roden's orange and almond cake.
It is a wonderfully damp, dense and aromatic flourless cake: it tastes like one of those sponges you drench, while cooling, with syrup, only you don't have to. This is the easiest cake I know.
[U.S. measurements; see link above for metric measurements]
4-5 clementines (about 1 pound total weight)
6 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 and one-third cups ground almonds
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
Put the clementines in a pot with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours. Drain and, when cool, cut each clementine in half and remove the pips. Dump the clementines - skins, pith, fruit and all - and give a quick blitz. Then tip in all the remaining ingredients and pulse to a pulp. Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Butter and line an 8 inch springform pan.
Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake for an hour, when a skewer will come out clean; you'll probably have to cover with foil or greaseproof after about 40 minutes to stop the top burning. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, on a rack, but in the pan. When the cake's cold, you can take it out of the tin. I think this is better a day after it's made, but I don't complain about eating it any time.
I've also made this with an equal weight of oranges, and with lemons, in which case I increase the sugar to one and one-quarter cups and slightly anglicize it, too, by adding a glaze made of confectioner's sugar mixed to a paste with lemon juice and a little water.
Enjoy!