Flourless Orange and Almond Cake - Food Safari SBS

Food Safari on SBS with Maeve O'Meara has got to be one of our favourite cooking shows.  Each episode features cuisine from a different nationality.  This flourless Orange and Almond Cake was featured on the Jewish episode the other night and apparently is a classic Passover dessert.  When I saw the lady blend two squishy boiled oranges into the cake mix I knew I had to try it!

First here's the recipe:
Ingredients
2 oranges
6 eggs
250g caster sugar
250g almond meal
1tsp baking powder
Extra caster sugar for dusting before baking
Icing sugar for dusting after baking
Margarine or oil spray (for greasing the pan)

Preparation

Wash oranges and place unpeeled, in a pot of boiling water for 2 hours. Drain the water and allow the oranges to cool. This can be done ahead of time.

Preheat oven to 190°C.

Break 6 eggs into a mixing bowl or blender. Add caster sugar and beat or blend together.
Place the two oranges into the egg mix. Break up the oranges and then blend together to a smooth consistency. Add the almond meal and baking powder and blend.

Grease a 20 cm spring form baking pan with margarine (or vegetable oil spray) and dust with caster sugar.

Pour batter into the pan and sprinkle caster sugar on top and bake for 1 hour to an hour and a half or until the top is golden brown.

Dust with icing sugar to serve.
Recipe sourced from Food Safari webpage

While boiling the oranges (very new concept for me) make sure you top up the water regularly..... also the house will be fragrant with a citrus perfume!  I cooked the oranges the night before, allowed them to cool for a couple of hours and then placed them in the fridge overnight.  As they need to be at room temperature, remove from fridge a few hours before you decide to start cooking......


Feedback:

This cake was so quick and easy to put together!  Literally all done in about 15min.  I used a blender for the eggs, sugar and oranges and then transferred mix into a bowl and hand mixed the almond meal & baking powder.  My main question when considering this recipe was whether it would taste bitter with all that orange peel???  Answer: Yes it has a bitter after taste.....but....it works!  The sugary crust and icing sugar help to counteract the bitterness of the orange and it is also a beautifully moist cake.  Next time I will perhaps throw in one entire orange and only the flesh of the second to try to tone down the bitterness.  Kids thought it was ok but didn't enjoy the bitter after taste......