Flourless Orange and almond cake

This is a Jill Dupleix iteration of the Sephardic orange-and-almond cake in Claudia Roden's A New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 2½ hr

Makes 2 cakes. Serves quite a lot of people.

Ingredients

• 3 medium oranges
• 6 eggs, separated
• 225g caster sugar
• 200g ground almonds
• 1tsp baking powder

Method

1. Place the clean, whole and unpeeled fruit in water to cover, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 1½ hours or until soft, adding more water when necessary. You can apparently also do this in the microwave.
2. Drain the oranges, cut into quarters, discard any major pips, and whiz the rest, including peel, in the food-processor, then cool.
3. Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4.
4. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl until pale. Beat in the oranges, almonds, and baking powder.
5. Beat the egg whites until softly peaky and fold gently into the mixture.
   Pour into a 23cm (9in) springform cake tin (I recommend a cake liner, as it's fairly runny) and bake for an hour, until firm to the touch (cover with a loose sheet of foil if over-browning).
6. Cool in the tin and dust with icing sugar and grated orange zest to serve.