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
- Prepare your baking tin by greasing and lining with baking parchment
- Set the oven to 180 ºC fan / 200 ºC conventional
- Separate the eggs into yolks and whites, putting the whites in one (very clean) bowl and the yolks in another
- 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
- Add the remaining caster sugar to the yolks and whisk until it turns pale and increases in volume
- 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
- 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
- Pour the mix gently into the prepared tin
- 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
- Leave to cool in the tin
- Decorate with icing sugar mixed with the extra clementine juice and poured over
- Once the icing is set (or nearly set) decorate with the peeled mandarins
Ink Sugar Spice - Lynn Clark 