Flourless Orange Cake

I recently made this cake for a dinner with my brother and an afternoon of magazine making and thought I would share the recipe with you. It was really delicious (if I can say so myself), and family who ate it seemed to agree. This is a flourless orange, but instead of almond meal I used besan flour (chickpea flour). Sounds weird, but it's not, once baked, you cannot tell it's any different from regular almond flour or even normal flour. I divided this batch in half, made one bundt cake with orange syrup and one round cake with orange cream cheese icing. You could just pour all the batter in one tin and make a huge cake, or even try muffin sizes.

As the weekend is approaching, a spot of baking is always a good idea and this is a recipe that is good for all members of the family.

You will need:
75 gm coconut oil or butter
200 ml rice malt syrup or honey
200 ml freshly squeezed orange juice (for me this was about 2 large oranges)
2 eggs
a good dash of vanilla
200 gm besan flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
extra orange juice for syrup cake
cream cheese icing for iced cake
extra rice malt syrup and orange juice for iced cake


Preheat the oven to 180C. Line/grease your desired tin or tins.
In a small saucepan, melt the coconut oil on low. In a large bowl, mix the rice malt syrup, orange juice, eggs and vanilla.

In a seperate bowl, sieve the besan flour and bicarb, with a pinch of salt, twice. Then sieve this again into the egg and vanilla mix. Doing this really helps the besan flour work.

Fold everything together, then add the melted coconut oil. Stir until combined. Pour into your tins and bake for approx 20-30 min. Baking will take longer if the batter is in one tin. If made into muffins, check earlier. A skewer should come out clean.

PLEASE NOTE: I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO GET A CAKE OUT OF  BUNDT TIN WITHOUT IT BREAKING, MINE WAS PATCHED UP, SO PLEASE ONLY USE A BUNDT TIN IF YOUR CONFIDENT!!!

Allow to cool for a couple of minutes before removing from tin to cool on wire rack.

For syrup cake, heat the juice of one orange until boiling. Skewer the cake and pour the hot juice over. Have a plate sitting under the cooling rack to catch any juice.

For an iced cake, allow cake to cool, then mix softened cream cheese with a couple tablespoons of orange juice and rice malt syrup to taste. Combine well and spread on cake.

Enjoy!

My brother, who usually picks up on gluten/wheat/sugar/dairy free foods didn't even notice, and infact he had seconds!!

This cake is safe for gluten/wheat free people, those off sugar and fructose (besides the orange juice) and dairy intolerance, but I promise, you won't know!

Hope you all have a great weekend,

Taz