Clementine cake

Perfect for an afternoon tea as it’s gorgeous on its own, or it can be served as a dessert with a good quality vanilla ice cream or custard.

Notes

• Use any small sweet, easy peeler citrus such as clementines, satsumas or mandarins
• Takes about 1 hour in total – about 10-15 minutes preparation and 40-45 minutes baking
• You can measure out the olive oil via a liquid scale (mls) or weigh it into a bowl (grams) – the result is the same
• If you’re finding it tricky to zest the clementines (the smoother skin of smaller citrus can be difficult) replace with the zest of one large orange

Equipment

• Two large bowls
• Springform cake tin, 20 – 23cm in diameter, greased and lined with parchment
• Scales, spatula, balloon whisk/mixer/electric hand whisk, measuring spoons and jugs

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs, separated
• 205g caster sugar
• 205ml mild olive oil, such as Filippo Berio Classico
• 205g Tipo 00 flour or plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• A pinch of fine salt
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla powder or extract
• 40g ground almonds
• Grated zest of four clementines
• 2 tablespoons of clementine juice

Also… for the topping

• Icing sugar
• Extra clementines, peeled for decoration
• Juice of two extra clementines

Method

1. Prepare your baking tin by greasing and lining with baking parchment
2. Set the oven to 180 ºC fan / 200 ºC conventional
3. Separate the eggs into yolks and whites, putting the whites in one (very clean) bowl and the yolks in another
4. Whisk up the egg whites until they are stiff peaks, whisk in one tablespoon of the caster sugar and the vanilla extract into the whites
5. Add the remaining caster sugar to the yolks and whisk until it turns pale and increases in volume
6. Add the flour, ground almonds, salt and baking powder to the sugar/yolk mixture and slowly whisk in until it is all combined and then mix in the olive oil plus the zest and juice
7. Fold in the whites to this mixture, a third at a time until it is combined. Try to be gentle while mixing in – a figure of eight motion is useful or use a balloon whisk to ‘cut’ the whites in gently
8. Pour the mix gently into the prepared tin
9. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes until the sponge springs back when depressed lightly with your finger and/or a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake
10. Leave to cool in the tin
11. Decorate with icing sugar mixed with the extra clementine juice and poured over
12. Once the icing is set (or nearly set) decorate with the peeled mandarins