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?? 😂)
Would it be ok to sub sugar with baking stevia? I’m worried it would affect the texture.
I’d like to know the answer too. It would be really exciting to get low carb versions of all Nagi’s recipes. 🖤
Hi Nagi, my hubby made this cake for my birthday today and it was fab! Thank you for a lovely recipe! 😊. I also made your pumpkin soup the other day and it turned out delish. Another keeper! Love Life of Dozer. He’s just gorgeous xx
Awesome recipe and a delicious cake – definitely a keeper! I used 2 oranges and 1 lemon as the 2 oranges I had weren’t large enough – it worked out well.
Hi it looks so delicious,can’t I make without almond meal??
Hi Madz, the almond meal is key in this recipe to keeping the cake beautifully moist. You could sub with hazelnut meal but not regular flour sorry. N x
Hi, Nagi! I really want to try this recipe soon coz it looks so good!🤩 But I’m just wondering. If I blitz the almond to make my own almond meal, is there any chance that it would turn to almond butter instead? And what should I do to prevent that?
Hi Tasha, it won’t turn into butter unless you add extra oil to get a smooth consistency 🙂 N x
Hi again, Nagi! I already tried the recipe, but it didn’t turn out as expected. The look is different (the surface isn’t sticky at all). And instead of moist, the texture is more like airy (certainly not in a good way!), and it feels more like you’re eating a soggy-ish cake. God, I hope you understand what I’m trying to say here since it’s a bit hard for me to explain!🤭 Oh, and it tastes pretty bitter as well. Did I not boil the oranges long enough? I boiled for 40 minutes straight. But probably I should wait until the water’s boiled and then wait another 40 minutes instead of counting 40 minutes from the start?🤔 Help, please! I really want to nail this cake!😅
Hi Nagi
This recipe looks delicious! How do you think it would go if I replaced the oranges for lemons?
Hi Karyn, I imagine it would be more tart – something I’d need to test. N x
This cake looks amazing! Would I be able to use one 7″ cake pan or would I need two?
Thank you for your recipes, Nagi. They are always a hit!
Hi Karen, I would just scale the recipe down to 10 serves and it should work fine in a 7″ pan. N x
It was delicious. I agree with some readers that the hero shot is so pretty. Great food styling.
Hi – have been making this recipe for some time and is great as little patty cakes for (grand) kids’ lunch boxes! I now use half a cup of gluten free SR flour as part of the flour instead of all almond meal and the little cakes hold their shape better. Good use for home grown oranges too!
Could I substitute the sugar for pure maple syrup, to make it more keto friendly?
Not for this recipe sorry – it would change the whole texture and would be too wet. N x
There is a powdered monkfruit that can be used for baking. I used some and regular sugar in pizzelles and it was great.
I’ve made flourless orange cakes before but your recipe is much nicer. I think the trick is boiling the oranges 3 times. Such an easy recipe with rewarding results. Served with a dollop of greek yoghurt. Yummy!
Hi Nagi,
Is the Weight of each orange 300grams or the total weight is 300 grams, I’m a little confused
Thanks,
Mayanka
300gr per orange, around 600gm all up 😀
yummo – I will definitely give it a try. Looks like you used almond meal from blanched almonds, though. I’ve been baking a lot with almond meal/flour since I went low carb and the meal from unpeeled almonds has lots of brown bits from the peel.
Hi Esther – you can use natural almond meal (with the skins on) or from blanched almonds with the skins removed – it won’t affect the cake in any way. N x
Hey Nagi!
I’m a huge fan of your recipes that have simple ingredients but are delicious and make me feel so fancy! I do have a question about this recipe, I made it this morning and it was very dense, not moist at all, my 4 year old still ate it so not a total loss! I blended my own almonds (in a ninja so it wasn’t as white/powdery as in the video) and wonder if that may be it? Also for the measurements was it 2.75 cups or 2.25 cups of the almond meal, I was thinking maybe this was my error. Thanks again for all that you do, any pointers would be helpful!
Hi Barbara, it could have been that you’ve blended your almonds not fine enough – but if this is the case I would use the metric weight measurement to ensure you’re using the right amount (rather than 2 3/4 cups) – use 250g. N x
Would this work well in mini loaf tins or the xtra large muffin tins?
I haven’t tried to be honest Elizabeth but someone in the comments has said they successfully did it in 2 loaf tins. N x
Such an interesting cake! The beautiful aroma filled the kitchen while baking and had such a delightful full orange flavour! Thank you Nagi for another delicious recipe – and so easy!
I should have taken the almonds a wee bit further in texture as my cakes definitely had some tiny bits of almonds. I did not want to get to a ‘butter’ stage! My next go at it will see almond flour used for comparison! My 9″ pan was not deep enough so I used the 8″ pans and they came out perfectly.
Beautiful lightness and taste.
Hugs from a distance to you and Dozer from across the pond!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Alex, if you sift the almond meal after you make it, you can avoid any bigger bits of nuts 🙂 N x
Thank you, Nagi!
Yes! This would be a perfect solution without the fear of taking the nuts too far!
This was so good and moist. Such a delicious and refreshing cake!
Thanks so much for the great feedback Magda!! N x
Used pink grapefruit instead of oranges and kept the sugar content the same and cooked it two loaf tins, wow, served with blueberries and crème frache, i am in love, thanks Nagi xxxx
Thanks Paul! I was just on here seeing if anyone’s tried with grapefruit as that’s the only citrus I have 😁. I already know it’s gonna be amazing. Thanks Nagi and Dozer 😉
Sounds amazing Paul!! N x
I don’t bake often, but I recently started eating sweets…. great habit to start at middle age. I was intrigued by this recipe and had all the ingredients (almond flour & monk sugar). My cake pan measured 8” across bottom, and 9” from lip to lip… so I figured I was good. The cake took ~70 mins to bake. I topped with a lemon glaze. I didn’t know what to expect, but the cake had a wet texture, and was still very slightly bitter. Three out of four family members enjoyed it… And I thought it was fun to make!
Hi May – I suspect the bitterness could be because you changed the sugar in this recipe – N x
Hello Nagi,this looks so pretty.I was wondering if I could use all purpose flour instead of almond meal.where I am, almond flour/meal is very expensive.
Hi Iyella, no you can’t sorry – the nut flour is key to this cake. N x