Gluten and Dairy Free Clementine Cake

Happy New Year everybody!!!!!!

 I hope 2014 brings happiness, love, health and prosperity to all. 

I had a nice, quiet Christmas. My little boy wasn't sick and enjoyed Christmas day immensely, I can say without a doubt that Christmas is his favourite time; summer, Halloween, Easter...they don't come even close!

My first recipe for 2014 is from the Nigella Lawson website. She uses ground almonds in lots of her recipes which is quite handy for those of us who avoid gluten. She made the cake using a 21cm tin. I
used a 23cm, the same that I use for her olive oil and chocolate cake (one of my favourites). Because this is a dense, moist cake and I didn't want to risk burning the top and under cooking the centre I tried not to make it too thick.

Now, I have a confession to make: I'm not sure if what I used were clementines or satsumas but I can tell you they worked! By the way, I made the marmalade you can see in the picture. My first time making jam!! I cheated, though, I made it in my breadmaker machine which has a jam programme. I had to run the programme twice to get the right "jelly" consistency but it came out perfect. And you guessed it, it's clementine marmalade! I bought lots over Christmas and I had to use them up...

Back to the cake, if you are in a hurry to eat cake this isn't going to be for you. You have to boil the clementines for two hours! But I think it's worth the wait and what I like most about this cake is that it's flourless and has no oil or butter, all the moisture comes from the fruit.

Ingredients:

• 375g clementines (approx. 3 medium-sized ones)
• 6 large eggs
• 225g white sugar (my husband thought it needed more sugar, I thought it was fine, up to you to increase the amount...)
• 250g ground almonds
• 1 tsp gluten free baking powder 

Method:

Put the clementines in a pan 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. Blitz the fruit (skins, pith and all) in a food processor.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Oil and line a 23cm Springform tin. Add all the other ingredients to the food processor and mix.

Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for and hour. Cover it with foil after about 40 minutes to stop the top burning. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, on a rack, but in the tin. When the cake is cold take it out of the tin.

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