I love this Orange Cake for the nutty flavour, damp and sticky texture, the beautiful orange flavour, and the unique method by which it’s made: blitzing whole oranges, rind and all, with almond meal, sugar, eggs and baking powder. No oil, no butter, no whisking!
Terrific easy cake for gatherings. And because it’s gluten-free and lactose free, everyone can enjoy it!
Whole Orange Cake
If you’ve spent a lifetime peeling oranges, it might sound strange that this cake is made using a whole orange.
But here’s the thing – as with lemons and limes, most of the orange flavour is in the rind. You will get way better orange flavour by mixing 1 tablespoon of finely grated orange zest into, say, Vanilla Frosting, rather than 1/4 cup of orange juice. Not to mention that zest doesn’t make frostings and cake batters watery.
So – we like rind for flavour. But we don’t like the pith – the white part underneath the skin – because it’s bitter.
Solution: boil the oranges. This removes the bitterness as well as softening the oranges to make them “jammy”, which makes the cake damp and sticky inside.
What goes in Orange Cake
Just 5 ingredients:
Whole fresh oranges
Almond meal (aka ground almonds) – see note below
Sugar
Eggs
Baking powder (make sure it’s gluten free if you’re making this as a gluten free cake)
Just a note on a couple of the ingredients:
Almond meal / ground almonds
This is literally raw almonds that are blitzed into a fine powder. It’s easily found nowadays, sold in the dried fruit & nut section and health food section of grocery stores.
You can also make your own by blitzing 250g/ 9oz raw, unpeeled, unsalted almonds in a powerful blender (I use a Vitamix) until it becomes a fine powder.
Almond flour is different but can also be used. This is made with blanched, peeled almonds, blitzed until it becomes powder form. It is lighter in colour (because the brown skin is removed) and it has a finer texture so it will give it slightly fluffier consistency. It also has a slightly less pronounced almond flavour. Almond flour is not as common in Australia. I’ve purchased it from those health food places where you serve yourself from tubs, like Scoop Wholefoods.
Oranges
The fresh oranges cannot be substituted with orange juice – the batter in this recipe relies on the thickness of the pureed oranges. Also, using whole oranges delivers massive orange flavour that OJ can never replicate!!
You will need 2 medium oranges about 8cm / 3″ in diameter (think baseball size) totalling around 600g/1.2 lb. You don’t need to be exact here – if they weigh more, your cake will be a little bit more moist. If they weigh less, that’s totally fine – almond meal cakes are super moist already, you won’t feel deprived.
But obviously if you have tiny ones, use multiple!
Can lemons be used as well?
Unfortunately not! Tried, and it was too bitter because the ratio of pith to flesh is higher. But it had a gorgeous lemon flavour. Still working on it!
How to make Orange Cake
The method used for this orange cake recipe is quite unique with the bonus being that it’s easy and low-effort. As mentioned above, oranges are boiled to soften and remove the bitterness from the pith (white part of rind). After this, they are blitzed – rind and all – with the remaining ingredients to make the batter.
You normally can’t use a food processor or blender for cake recipes made with flour because they’re simply too powerful so they will overwork the gluten in the batter, resulting in horridly hard, rubbery cakes!
First – boil and chop
Boil oranges in water for 10 minutes;
Drain, then repeat twice more. (ie 3 x 10 minutes) The purpose of this step is to remove the bitterness from the white part of the rind – if you skip this (and there are some recipes that do) then the cake will be bitter. Shortcut: Boil 40 minutes without draining, but keep an eye on water level. The flavour is marginally “cleaner” if you change the water as directed, but this shortcut is perfectly acceptable;
Slice oranges and remove seeds; then
Roughly chop – no need to be meticulous here, it’s just to help it blitz faster.
Then – blitz and bake!
Place in a food processor. Blender also works, but I find it more tedious to scrape all the batter out. A NutriBullet works brilliantly for the blitzing but is too small for the whole batch of batter . So just do the oranges first, pour into bowl, blitz remaining ingredients, then mix everything together in the bowl;
Blitz for 3 x 10 second bursts on high, scraping down the sides well, until you no longer see the large lumps and it’s looks like jam. It may take longer depending on the strength of your food processor. Basically, the less orange rind bits, the better – but some rind bits are ok, great jammy texture!
Add the remaining ingredients – almond meal, baking powder, sugar and eggs, then blitz until well combined. If at this stage you realise there’s still too many rind chunks, you can blitz for longer;
Pour into a lined cake pan – 1 x 23cm/9″ (cake will be 4 cm / 1.7″ tall) or 2 x 20cm / 8″ (cake will be 3 cm / 2.2″ tall);
Bake for 60 minutes until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean; and
Cool in the pan – it’s too fragile to remove while warm. The cake will shrink some, as you can see in the photo above.
Decoration Suggestions
Unlike some cakes, I think an unadorned Orange Cake is lovely because it has a gorgeous golden orange colour. Also, this cake is so moist and full of flavour, you do not need nor want a frosting. I’ve seen some recipes that soak similar cakes in orange syrup – too sweet for me!
However, if you want to give it some pretty finishing touches to impress your work colleagues or friends, here are a few suggestions:
Dusting of icing sugar / powdered sugar – simple and pretty!
Fresh oranges (pictured above) – cut thin slices of oranges with rind on, then cut a slit to the middle. Then twist and place on the cake, as shown – it will hold itself in place;
Orange rind (pictured above) – use a knife or zester to cut thin strips of orange rind. Orange part only, not the white pith. Twist them around a wooden spoon handle or similar, leave for 10 minutes or so then it will hold it’s shape in loose curls, as pictured. For tight ringlets, leave overnight!
Fresh flowers – just a few little sprigs from a tree out of the front of my house are pictured here. Not edible, just for decorations! They’re not orange blossoms either unfortunately….
Candied orange peel or dried orange slices – scatter! With or without icing sugar;
Toasted almonds – flakes or slivers. To make them stick, you could brush the surface with warmed marmalade loosened with a touch of water;
Pomegranate seeds – for a wow-factor pop of red colour!
Drippy lemon or orange glaze – use the one in this Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe.
How to serve it
I can 100% promise you, this cake is moist and flavourful enough to eat plain. But if you really want something to dollop on the side, yogurt is excellent – the fresh tartness plays extremely well against the nuttiness of the almonds, and I think it’s a better option than cream. Plain or Greek yogurt is best, or a very mildly sweet flavoured one.
For a richer alternative, creme fraiche would be lovely.
It’s also very, very good served ever-so-slightly warmed with a scoop of ice cream on top. Perhaps not conventional – but it works, and that’s what matters! – Nagi x
PS. Also – for gluten-free purposes and just because it’s darn tasty – a suggested alternative to this cake is Flourless Chocolate Cake. New video for this one is coming soon!
Watch how to make it
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Whole Orange Cake – flourless
Ingredients
- 2 medium oranges, fresh whole with rind on – any type (600g/1.4 lb total weight, ~300g / 10 oz each orange, ~ 8cm/3" diametre, Note 1)
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 6 large eggs , at room temp (Note 2)
- 1 1/4 cups white sugar
- 2 3/4 cups almond meal / ground almonds (Note 3)
Instructions
Boil oranges:
- Boil 10 minutes: Place oranges in a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil over medium high heat. Boil for 10 minutes and drain.
- Repeat x 2: Put oranges back in the pot, cover with cold water and boil again for 10 minutes. Drain, then repeat once more (ie. boil oranges 3 x 10 minutes). Shortcut: Boil 40 minutes without draining, keeping an eye on water level. (Note 4)
- Chop: Rinse oranges, then cool slightly so you can handle them. Slice into 1cm / 1/4" slices then dice, removing any seeds. Cool completely.
Batter:
- Preheat oven: Preheat oven to 160°C/320°F (140°C fan). Grease and line a 23cm/9" cake pan with baking/parchment paper. (Note 5)
- Blitz oranges: Place chopped oranges in a food processor (Note 6). Blitz on high for 4 x 10 second bursts, scraping down the sides in between, until it's pureed into a marmalade consistency with only a few visible bits of rind remaining. It does not need to be completely smooth.
- Blitz in remaining ingredients: Add almond meal, eggs, baking powder and sugar. Blitz for 5 – 10 seconds on high until combined.
- Bake 60 minutes: Pour into prepared cake pans. Bake 60 minutes until the surface is golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Cool: Cool fully in cake pan. Unless using loose base pan, cover surface with baking paper to help you turn it out (cake is sticky so may stick to your hand and tear surface otherwise.)
- Serve: Decorate as desired – I used slices of fresh oranges, rind strips and sprigs of flowers. A dusting of icing sugar / powdered sugar is also lovely. Cut, then serve! See Note 7 for suggestions.
Recipe Notes:
- Be sure to use gluten-free baking powder if making this for GF purposes!
- Sweetness – average sweetness, definitely not overly sweet. Sugar can be cut to as little as 1/2 cup but personally, I don’t think that’s sweet enough.
1. Oranges – the cake is fine with smaller or larger oranges, but aim for around 600g/1.2lb in total. If they are much larger, then the cake will just be more moist. Obviously if yours are tiny, then use more than 2 so they total 600g/1.2lb! Does it work with lemons? Unfortunately not! Tried, and it was too bitter because the ratio of pith to flesh is higher. But it had a gorgeous lemon flavour. Working on it! Will update when I figure it out. 2. Large eggs – industry standard, labelled as such on egg cartons. 55 – 60g / 2 oz each. 3. Almond meal / ground almonds (same thing) – this is finely blitzed raw, whole almonds in powder form, used in place of flour to add a beautifully nutty flavour to cakes, makes them ultra moist and also gluten-free. Find it in the dried fruit and nut section or health food section of grocery stores. Making your own: 250g/9 oz whole, raw unsalted almonds, blitzed until powdered. Almond flour is slightly different but can be used. Cake texture will be slightly lighter (almond flour is made with blanched peeled almonds). 4. Changing water makes the cake flavour a bit cleaner because you’re discarding the bitter flavour in the water. But it’s only marginal – I’ve often done a 40 minute straight boil. 5. Cake pans – also great in 2 x 20cm/8″ pans, 50 minutes in oven. I like using 1 x 23cm / 9″ pan because it’s slightly taller. 6. Food processor is best for ease of use. You can also use a blender (it’s just more annoying to scrape out all batter) or a NutriBullet (too small for full batter, so blitz oranges first, transfer to bowl, blitz everything else and then mix). I’ve also made this by hand when camping: I finely chopped boiled oranges by knife, then used a fork to mash as best I could (mortar and pestle would also work.) To cook, I used a large pot, with a cake pan elevated over simmering water using a few rocks, lid on, about 1 hour. Worked 100% perfectly – and came out even more moist from the steam! 7. Serving: Delicious plain because it’s so moist and flavourful, but a dollop of Greek or plain yogurt, or creme fraiche is also wonderful. Otherwise, slightly warmed with vanilla ice cream! Decorations – see in post for suggestions. 8. Source – This recipe was given to me by a Sydney based professional pastry chef, a recipe she’s used at establishments she’s previously worked at. 9. Storage – keeps 5 days in an airtight container in the pantry, though if it’s hot where you are, then it’s recommended to keep in the fridge. Stays 100% perfectly moist! It can also be frozen up to 3 months. Make ahead: Oranges can be boiled and chopped the day before, and refrigerated. Bring to room temp then use per recipe. 10. Nutrition per serving assuming 12 servings.
Nutrition Information:
More delicious cakes with fruit
Life of Dozer
My money pit.
(I’m talking about the pool. What did you think I was referring to?? 😂)
This is a fantastic, easy moist cake with an amazing orange flavor. It definitely does not need frosting. I served it for a morning tea with creme fraiche, and it was a huge hit.
I made this for the family and one guest. Sooo very very tasty. Super easy to make. It did take 1.5hrs to cook at 160 degrees but it came out of the oven perfect!
I also added an orange syrup.
1/3 cup of sugar and juice of one orange – heat and stir till syrupy. When the cake is cooling, prick holes in the top and gently pour over the syrup. It sets to a nice glaze and adds a lot to both the flavour and the presentation of the cake. I also decorated with strips of orange peel. YUMM YUMM
Oh…and the guest took the rest of the cake home. 🙂
I am glad you enjoyed it Peta! N x
A very simple, very tasty cake that lasts a long time. I took it into work and the lady I work with who is allergic to gluten and lactose was very impressed.
In fact, this is probably the easiest cake I’ve ever made. No creaming eggs & butter, no sifting flour and no long list of ingredients to remember. Once you’ve boiled the oranges – an exercise in patience – you just chuck everything in a food processor and whiz everything until it’s combined and not chunky.
Thanks for posting this one.
I’m actually baking this recipe right now and I just realized that I put all the batter into a 20cm cake pan! This is what happens when you bake when you’re exhausted… My entire house smells delicious lol.. I’m hoping I can somehow save this bake..
Your recipes are always faultless and amazing Nagi!
Ooops! Have done similar many times! Hope it turned out ok! N x
Oh Nagi.. I was so surprised that it actually baked properly in the 60min! I tagged you on Insta.. I will make a syrup with it next time though.. My sweet tooth is too strong😂
This cake is SO GOOD. It smells amazing, the flavour is the perfect amount of intense, it’s super moist and has a lovely texture (especially for flourless!). Great option for when I want to spoil my GF friends/colleagues!
Forgot to say. I don’t have a food processor but I just cut the orange up finely and then used my stick blender to get it to the jammy consistency in the video, added in the rest of the ingredients and used the stick mixer to combine everything. Worked a treat!
Thank you Tam – great tip for making it work without a processor! N x
Taking this to a neighborhood football watching party tomorrow. I got a smidge of a taste when it came out of the pan (mmm, delicious!!) and already figuring out when to make it again. Super easy and so good!! Thank you for your effort to figure this out, Nagi!
Thanks! N x
G’day
You mentioned about not using lemons for this recipe. We have a Meyer lomon tree that produces lots of sweet juicy fruit, compared too the normal Lisbon.
I may give it a go, nothing ventured nothing gained.
I have Meyer lemons too. How did it go?
Love to know if this works .my husband loves lemon cake. 🙂
Let me know too! Sounds amazing if it works!
Let me know how you go! N x
I am a diabetic so often miss out on luscious recipes. I wonder if I could substitute monk fruit instead of sugar. Probably wouldn’t need as much. What do you think Nagi?
I used 200g xylitol/lakanto instead of the 250g recommended (1.5 cups). It’s works perfectly. A tad sweet for me, I will reduce the next time 😊
Thank you so much for your helpful reply. Much appreciated.
I haven’t tested that…sorry, I am not sure. N x
This is a luscious and yummy cake!! Super moist, texture is awesome. My family love it and so do friends that I’ve made it for!!
So glad you like it! N x
Made this one today and oooh the smell of it was so devine and tastes yum. Loved that the entire orange was used. Dont have a processor so used nutri ninja in batches and worked as good. Used only 1 cup sugar as I reduce sugar qty when following all recipes and was perfect to our taste buds (hope my local neighbours thought the same 🤞- cos something that smells this good must be shared!) Will definitely make again and add some poppy seeds 😃
Oh and of cos it was hard to cut straight out of the oven as its so moist, so leaving to cool before diving in is recommended 😁
I love the smell of baking! N x
Nagi set about making whole orange cake. Put two oranges in jug of water and put in microwave after twenty minutes the oranges had split??
Hi…I wouldn’t recommend cooking the oranges in the microwave, only. on the stovetop. N x
You need to boil them on the stove. Don’t use microwave.
How are the weights in metrics system the same for the flour and the almond if the weights are different in the cup system???
Hi Marcos
I imagine it’s because sugar is much heavier than almond meal so when weighed they are equal even though cup measurements are different 🙂
Hi Nagi, I have such fond memories of a orange chocolate cake my mother used to make. Do you have a dark chocolate topping you would suggest that would work well with this cake?
Hi Antoinette, you could always use a chocolate ganache on top of this recipe if you like!! N x
OMG Nagi!!! I am not a dessert maker, I am a mains dish maker lol… however, yesterday I made the Orange Cake to take to dinner. I followed the recipe to the cm!! It was wonderful!! honestly I shocked myself!! Thank you! I am going to attempt your White cake next dinner party!!!!!
I used monk fruit in place of sugar to make this more WW friendly. It turned out great! Super flavorful and moist. My one issue is trusting my Bundt pan would not stick and it fell apart while I was trying to remove it from the pan. Next time I will definitely use the parchment paper!
OH MY GOODNESS!!! Amazing! My first attempt and it came out wonderfully. 5 ingredients only and already a winner for me. I followed exact recipe, oranges from my yard, it’s definitely a keeper for me. Loved it Nagi! Thank you for sharing this recipe and look forward to more delicious recipes.
Hi! Do you think I can make this recipe into cupcakes instead of a whole cake? If yes, could you please let me know oven temperature and baking time? Thank you!
Hello, just wondering if this cake tastes eggy, I don’t like eggy foods like quiche, frittata etc. I’ve never made a cake with more than 2 eggs. Looks amazing and keen to try though, thanks
Hi, It is not eggy at all, It is wonderful and orangy!! I just made it! divine!
Thanks so much Susan, great to know! Sounds like it’s delicious, I’ll make it soon
Delicious, I used Almond flour, recipe as directed, made it as a larger cake which I dressed with the orange iced glaze, thicker cake I used creamed cheese icing sugar fresh cream and orange juice, both delicious
Made three of these cakes in 3 days (2 to gift away). It was so delicious and yet no one that tried it can pin point how I could have made it. Little did they know it was SO SIMPLE. Such a great secret recipe for me 🙂