Don't ask me about calories. I'm not a food scientist so I really haven't got a clue how many calories are in anything I make. I don't even know how to work them out. All I know is that if you are trying to avoid gluten or dairy or sugar but still want a delicious treat, then this is the cake for you.
You will not believe how light and moist this is and while it is not as sweet as your typical cake, you will also find it almost impossible to believe that there is no sugar in it as the maple syrup and orange juice add a beautiful, delicate, natural sweetness to the taste and most importantly - it is not difficult to make.
So here is what you need.....
Ingredients
3 large eggs
4 tablespoons of honey or maple syrup (I prefer maple syrup as I think it gives a lighter
texture to the cake)
1 level teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of vinegar (I use cider vinegar but white vinegar is fine too)
The grated zest of one large orange.
60 mls of orange juice (Squeezed or from a carton - it makes no difference)
60 mls of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
130g of finely ground almond flour
Method
1. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees or 160 degrees if you have a fan oven.
2. Prepare an 8 inch pan with a circle of baking parchment to place at the bottom of the pan. A shallow pan is fine but I usually use a tall pan because I just happen to like the quality of my tall pans - but it makes no difference at all.
I spray this goldwax spray onto all of my pans just before I use them so that my cakes will not stick but unless you are a professional cake maker, it is unlikely you will have anything like this in your cupboard. To keep this recipe dairy free just put some vegetable oil onto a tissue and smear it around your pan and that will work just as well.
3. Separate the egg yolks and egg whites into separate bowls.
4. Add the vinegar to your egg whites and whisk them until soft peaks start to form.
5. To the egg yolks add your honey or maple syrup, grated orange zest, orange juice, oil, baking soda and vanilla extract and beat to blend well. This will take around 4 minutes.
6. Fold the whisked egg whites into the egg yolk batter. Now I know that folding fluffy eggs into a wet mixture puts the fear of God into a lot of people but it can be done.
I really should show you how to do this on a video but seeing as I am only realising that now after the cake is made, I will try and explain it here as best I can. Most bakers will tell you to use a rubber spatula for folding but I use a metal table spoon and it works just as well. Whichever tool you choose the technique is the same.
Dollop a spoonful of egg white into the middle of your egg yolk mixture (As you can see in the picture, I put the whole lot in in one go but I am an experienced baker. If you are not comfortable with this technique then just do one spoonful of egg white at a time.) Cut down through the centre of that egg white with your spoon or spatula and then scoop the mixture towards you. When your spoon/spatula gets to the edge of the bowl you flip it over pulling the yoke mixture over the egg whites and this is called folding the egg whites into the batter. Turn your bowl a little to the right and repeat this motion again and keep turning your bowl and repeating the folding technique until you can no longer see any little lumps of egg white. It is important that there are no lumps of egg white left or when your cake is cooked you will have lumps of cooked egg white throughout it. Be gentle. You don't want to burst all those lovely bubbles that you whisked in as they will make your cake light in texture.
Now add another spoon of egg white and keep repeating the whole process again.
It isn't difficult, it just takes time so you need to have a little patience.
It should look lovely and smooth with no lumps when you are done like this.
7. Finally fold your almond flour into the batter using the exact same technique as you used for folding the egg white. Luckily almond flour does not take as much time to fold in as your egg white did so this should only take you a minute or two.
8.Add the mixture to the pan you prepared earlier and bake in your preheated oven for around 20 minutes. Insert a toothpick or a skewer into the centre of the cake and when it comes out clean, you'll know the cake is done.
9. You can serve this cake hot or cold but I love it hot so I tend to remove it from the pan very shortly after it comes out of the oven, remove the baking parchment from the bottom of the cake and cut myself a slice and serve it with a dollop of cream..... I can only deny myself so much.
Enjoy!!
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