- Serves 8 -10 - Ready in 1 hour 30 minutes (includes 30 minutes cooling time) -
Gather together...
1 orange, 1 lemon and 1 lime (totalling an un-peeled weight of approximately 400g).
200g white sugar (either caster or granulated work fine).
1.5 tsp baking powder (sieved).
300g ground almonds.
4 medium eggs (beaten).
Serve with...
175g icing sugar (to make the icing).
Get baking...
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 C (160 C fan) or to Gas 4.
2. Butter-grease and line a 9inch (23cm) loose-base / spring-form tin, with grease proof paper, or better still with a cut-to-size reusable liner (such as this from Lakeland).
3. Zest the three citrus fruits (with a fine mesh grater) and set the zest aside for later - plus, SAVE 1 tsp of the mixed zest in a small cup to use in the cake icing later.
4. Take the 'bald' fruit and cut away and discard any remaining skin, white pith and seeds (check them lemon especially carefully for hidden seeds). Roughly chop the three fruits into small-ish chunks. Any juices released can be SAVED in the small cup (which already has 1 tsp of zest in) and used to make the icing with, once the cake is baked.
5. In a food processor, blitz together the 200g of white sugar and the citrus-fruit chunks. Blitz for 60 seconds until the fruity-sugary mixture is pulverised and almost completely smooth.
6. To the food processor, add the 300g of ground almonds and sieve in the 1.5 tsp of baking powder. Blitz for 10 seconds.
7. Add the 4 beaten eggs and the 3-fruit ZEST (don't forget about the zest!) to the food processor. Blitz to combine, this will take about 20 seconds.
8. Pour the cake mixture (it is runny) into the greased and lined tin.
9. Bake the cake on the middle oven shelf for 30 minutes - until a skewer / knife, inserted vertically into the centre of the cake, comes out clean.
10. Cool the cake on a wire rack, IN its tin for 10 minutes.
11. Then carefully go around the edge of the cake with a knife to loosen it away from the tin. Remove the outer tin but leave the base on whilst the cake cools and firms up for a further 30 minutes.
12. Meanwhile, make the icing: Put the 175g of icing sugar in a medium bowl, gradually (ONLY 1 tsp at a time) mix in the juice / zest until the icing is fluid enough to flow over the cake but not fluid enough to all leak off the edge. If you need more liquid, sparingly use teaspoons of cold water.
13. Using a fish slice, remove the cool / almost cool cake from the base of the tin and slide it onto the plate you will serve it on. Drizzle the icing all over the top of the cake and spread it out with a clean metal spoon -allow some to drip artistically over the side of the cake.
14. Once fully cool, keep the cake in an airtight container in the fridge and eat it up within three days.
This cake was devised by me and my eldest - who loves the local National Trust version of this cake. We have tried to re-create it unsuccessfully a number of times. Thank you to the 'Kavey Eats' blog, whose recipe for 'Little Orange and Lime Cakes from Brazil' gave me the idea of putting the fruit (minus the skins) in whole, then blitzing with a food processor. My chief taster happily informs me that we have cracked it with our new recipe - phew!