Tangerine almond cake by Jeanne

Ingredients:
3-5 organic tangerines, medium size
4 eggs
185 g sugar
200 g almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
icing sugar

Put tangerines in a casserole and add just enough water to cover the fruits. Cook on low heat for 30 minutes. Leave them to cool down.

Heat up oven to 180°C. To save the juice cut the tangerines above a tray and remove stems and seeds if there are any. Cut in even smaller pieces and use immersion blender to turn pulp and the skins into homogeneous mixture. For the cake you need 250 ml of the mixture. The rest can be frozen and used for the same cake when tangerines are out of season.

Blanch the almonds for few minutes and remove the skins. If you are lazy you can buy blanched almonds or you can leave the skins. The cake will be equally tasty but the cake interior won’t have a bright, homogenous color. Then, the best is to grind them coarsely in manual nuts grinder to get almond meal, not flour. If you use electric grinder, for example some old coffee grinder like I do, add a spoon of sugar on every three spoons of almonds. The sugar will soak up the released fat and the mixture won’t turn into thick gluey mess.

Beat eggs and sugar with electric mixer until you get creamy texture. Add baking powder, the almond meal and the tangerine mixture. Mix gently until you get a homogenous dough.

Rub a 21 cm diameter baking mould with cold butter then coat it with parchement paper. The paper should overpass the mould edge by 2 cm. Finally, rub the paper with cold butter. Pour the dough into the mould and shake it few times to spread horizontally.

Bake for 60 to 75 minutes. After 30 minutes cover it with aluminium foil to prevent excess caramelization of the cake surface. Cool down the cake in the mould. As it is often the case with cakes, it tastes best the next day when all flavors and aromas get fused. Just before serving powder it with icing sugar. Wonderful with homemade pomegranate syrup if you would like to add a tangy bite or with varenik of Istrian Malvazija (grape juice slowly reduced into thick syrup) if caramel is your sweet spot.

Thanks Jeanne!