The blood oranges are currently falling from the tree and cluttering up my kitchen bench.

A couple of kilos have already been chopped and stored in the freezer to make marmalade one day.

What should I do with the other dozen or so that are just sitting there, looking at me?

Make a cake. But then I’ll have to eat it, and in the depths of winter my body is saying ‘don’t eat cake, you need to move more’.

This working-from-home caper means not meeting the people I write about face to face, only ever over the phone.

Which also means I don’t move from my desk very much

But today is different. We are having visitors and need to show some old-fashioned country hospitality and put on a bit of a spread.

Alan from the Echuca Show just happens to be driving past on the way to the in-laws, so for a spread, I’m using up some blood oranges and baking a cake.

Orange almond cake

Ingredients

2 large oranges

10 eggs

400g sugar

400g almond meal

2 tsp baking powder

Method

STEP ONE: Place the oranges in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Place the saucepan on the stove and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for two hours.

At the end, you will have two soft but whole cooked oranges.

Here is where things started to change, for me, from the original recipe.

My blood oranges are all different sizes, some quite small, so instead of two large oranges, four smaller ones went into the saucepan.

STEP TWO: Turn on the oven to 180°C.

Place the eggs, oranges and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Process until mushy and all pureed together.

I like to squash the soft oranges between my hands straight into the food processor, because you can’t have whole oranges rattling around in there as it would kill the machine.

STEP THREE: Place the almond meal and baking powder in a large bowl.

I was sure there was an unopened pack of almond meal in the pantry. There wasn’t, only a container with about 120g in it.

At this point I was too deep in, the oranges, eggs and sugar had been mushed.

But look, there is a container of hazelnut meal, which will add a little chocolatey nutty flavour to the cake, and chocolate goes with orange, so the flavour should work.

The hazelnut meal was added, and now I’m up to 320g.

By this time, it’s 8pm, and in the little town I live in, on Sunday nights the shop closes early and there is no chance of any type of meal.

Wanting to keep the cake flour-free, there was the next best thing in the pantry: polenta.

The last 80g of the 400g of almond meal became polenta.

STEP FOUR: Add the mushy orange, eggs and sugar to the (almond) meal and baking powder. Mix well together.

STEP FIVE: Pour into a 23cm round lined cake tin. Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 60 minutes, or until the cake is cooked through when tested.

I find this cake might take a little longer.

There were more dramas when making this cake, like forgetting to set the timer (twice), not having enough eggs, and the first cake tin being too small, but I’ve run out of words on the page for a recipe that should have been so simple.

Enjoy

— Jaci

Do you have a favourite recipe or a hint for Jaci? Let her know by dropping her a line at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au

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Saturday, 27th August 2033

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