J'ai return and an old favorite, orange and almond cake

Well hello the readers of my blog and I mean all six of you . It has been a while since the kooky cook has cooked and graced the hallowed pages of the blog with the results .

Miss Kooky Cook has returned to University Life ( University of Nottingham ) and is training to be a  secondary level science teacher and as a result she has not had time to bless her self .
 I have never knew I could work this hard in my life , I should rename the blog the sad desk as it is where I spend about a  two thirds of time with the other third being spent in school .


I am home for the Easter holidays ad have a little more time on my hands so I thought I would return to cooking with my absolute favorite cake Flour-less orange cake 
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This a cake kicks all the boxes , it is delicious , very easy to make , it keeps for ages , it is gluten and dairy free, it has cross over between tea time treat and diner party dessert . It also fills a very trendy foodie niche  is inspired by middle eastern cooking ,in short it is  a hard working , adaptable ,simply marvelous cake

Orange and almond cake 

Inspired by  Claudia Roden's  Middle astern cooking 

Ingredients 

cake 

1 Orange 

1 Lemon 

2 green cardamon pods (optional ) 

6 medium eggs 

150 g of caster sugar 

200 g of ground almond 

splash or orange blossom water ( optional) 

citrus glaze 

juice and zest of an orange 

juice of a lemon

three tablespoons of caster sugar 

Place your citrus fruit in a sauce pa of cold water along with a couple of bashed cardamom ( if using ) bring  to a simmer and cook for about an hour until fruit can be pierced easily with the edge of a spoon  

Chop fruit roughly removing pips and pulse i a food processor to a rough  puree . You ca see from the picture above that we used the small chopper , as the fruit is so soft after cooking 

Give your eggs a quick whisk 

Using electric beater to combine ground almond , fruit pulp , sugar , orange flower water 

Pour in to a oiled cake tin 

bake in a preheated  at 170 fan for about 45 minutes and go and have a picnic in the garden 

after 45 minutes cake is done when slightly domed , this cake will not rise as much as a flour based cake 

You can see from the pictures that my garden picnic distracted me and I left the cake in  a little too log as it browned around the edges , but this cake is forgiving as we shall glaze him and he will be beautiful 

Citrus glaze 

place all the ingredients in a sauce pan and cook until it is syrupy, you know your on the right track when it's start to smell a little like marmalade

pour over the inverted cake ad leave to cool 

this cake will keep for about a week  once it is covered , serve with creme fresh , cream or as seen in picture above with thick set Greek yogurt