Guest post,  Sweet

Guest post: Clementine and almond cake

clementinecake
Hi there, it’s Louisa here from Chez Foti and I’m guest blogging a recipe today for Fiona. We recently stumbled upon each other in the wonderful world of cyberspace and interestingly both happen to live down in deepest, darkest South West France. Well, Fiona lives in the bordering region of Aquitaine and I’m in Midi-Pyrenees, but that makes us practically neighbours in these distinctly rural and empty parts. And it’s not often you meet fellow English foodie bloggers down this way, so I’m delighted to meet her!
Over at Chez Foti I blog hearty, generally healthy, wholesome family friendly fodder that’s always seasonal and uses local as possible fresh ingredients. Since I have a two and a four year old to nourish most of my recipes are quick and simple to prepare and obviously very child-friendly. Though there’s the occasional dalliance into grown-ups-only fair and a little naughtiness here and there. Life really is too short to be good all the time!
My recipe for you, on our little cakey blog swop, is a fabulous (chocolateless!) Clementine & Almond Cake. A wheatless, dairy-free delight which, without deliberately intending to be, is actually pretty darned good for you and almost as good as cake can get. Though if you want to naughty things up a little it’s wonderful with a big dollop of crème fraiche or Mascarpone!
Ingredients:
375g of clementines, tangerines or satsumas (they all work!)
5 large free range eggs
175g of cane sugar
250g of ground almonds
a heaped teaspoon of baking powder, sieved
a tablespoon of Amaretto, optional
a little icing sugar for dusting
Special Equipment: a 21cm spring-sided baking tin lined with greaseproof paper
Place the clementines in a saucepan and cover the fruit with cold water. Bring to the boil, cover and leave to simmer away for 2 hours. Top up the water level as it drops. After 2 hours remove from the water and allow to cool for a few minutes before whizzing to a pulp in a processor (or with a stick blender).
Pre-heat your oven to 190ºC.
Now on with this cinch of a cake. Whisk up the eggs in a large bowl, using a balloon whisk. Then whisk in the sugar followed by the ground almonds and baking powder. Finally stir in the clementine pulp.
Pour the cake mixture into your lined cake tin and bake in the pre-heated oven for around 40 minutes. It should be golden on top, firm to touch and an inserted skewer will come out clean. Leave to cool in the tin on a cooling rack.
Once cool carefully remove from the tin and lightly dust with sieved icing sugar. Serve as is or with a naughty spoon of creme fraiche or mascarpone. And if you can possible wait, this cake is even better the next day…
Thank you Louisa for this recipe — I can vouch for it because I made it and it was pure ambrosia. Visit Louisa’s blog, Chez Foti,  for other delicious recipes like this one and some excellent vegetable gardening advice.  Fiona, The Healthy Epicurean 🙂

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