Orange and Almond Cake

You look high and low for recipes when you fall in love with a food. And sometimes it is hard to satisfy your palate with what you make because your hand creations cannot match the great taste that you enjoyed for that food the first time. The Orange and Almond Cake is one such recipe for me. It was a sweet yet refreshing and light dessert. I've been working to perfect this recipe for a long time and I stroke it rich when I landed on the Food Safari show in SBS one day where they presented this exhilarating dessert as a classic Passover confection from the Mediterranean, Morocco and the Middle East.

Drawing the idea of adding the dark chocolate ganache on top from Reebu and serving the cake with some orange syrup, I've rested my hunt to perfect this recipe because for me, this cannot get better. And again, another gluten-free recipe to add to my list, if I can omit chocolate ganache.

Note: - This cake is best prepared with Navel oranges when they are in season.
 
Makes: 1 x 9" cake
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 - 30 minutes (pressure cooker)
Baking Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes

Ingredients 

For the cake

• 2 navel oranges, washed (around 500g)
• 250g caster sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 250g almond meal
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 1/2 tsp orange essence (optional)

For the syrup

• 1 navel orange
• 155g caster sugar
• 1 tsp orange essence

For the ganache

• 1 x 100g Lindt Excellence Orange Intense dark Chocolate
• 1/3 cup cream

Method
1. Bring enough water to immerse two oranges to boil in a pressure cooker. Pressure cook whole oranges in low flame for about 20 - 30 minutes. The oranges should be soft to touch but avoid breaking it. Drain and keep aside to cool. Cut off the ends of the oranges, coarsely chop oranges and make a puree.
2. Pre-heat fan-forced oven to 150°C. Prepare a 9" cake pan.
3. Beat eggs and caster sugar until well combined using a beater. Stir in the orange puree until mixed well. Follow this with almond meal and baking powder. Pour the batter into prepared tin and bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in the tin before taking it out.
4. Juice orange. Place orange juice with sugar over low heat. Keep stirring until sugar dissolves and the syrup thicken. This should take around 2 - 3 minutes.
5. Combine chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir with a metal spoon until smooth. Remove bowl from heat and wait for few minutes before pouring the ganache over the cake.

To serve, cut cake into individual slices and pour orange syrup over each slice.