Recipe: Clementine cake - gluten free and dairy free

You know that feeling when you finished watching a movie and you just have to try/eat/do/travel because the movie is affecting you so much. Well, that happens to me a lot.....especially when food is involved. The most recent 'I-have-to-make-this' feeling was when I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty months ago when I was still in Malaysia. Too bad I can't find clementines in the country thus the planned was postponed for a while.


It was not until recently when I went pumpkin hunting that I had the chance to buy clementines and bake similar cake in the movie *weee* The cake was based from this recipe with slight modification. I was pretty doubtful before making the cake as the recipe didn't call for butter or oil, but changed my mind once I bite the cake. It was so moist! And yeah, tastes great too! The moist comes from the clementine puree and the eggs.


To make the cake more healthy use natural sweetener instead. You can use maple syrup and dried dates instead of processed sugar and the taste will still be amazing!

Clementine cake
[click here for printable version]

5 clementines
150 g dark brown sugar
200 g ground almond
100 g coconut flakes
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg powder
1/4 teaspoon allspice powder
6 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons icing sugar (or more for glazing)

1. Put clementines in a large pot and cover with water. Boil clementines for 2 hours or until soften and set aside until they cool down to room temperature and puree them using a blender. Use 3/4 of the total puree for cake, and the rest for glazing.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Greased your desired pan (I used a Bundt pan). Combine brown sugar, ground almond, coconut flakes, baking powder, spices and vanilla powder in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle of the dried mixture, and put 3/4 of the clementine puree and eggs and fold the mixture gently. Pour the batter in the cake pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.
3. To make the glaze, mix the rest of the clementine puree with icing sugar (I like to make mine less sweet, thus it becomes more runny) and pour on the cooled cake.

This cake goes really well with tea and coffee. Enjoy!

p.s: If you can't find clementine, you can use tangerine instead. Take out the seeds and boil the skin and flesh until soften. The good thing about clementine is that it is seedless.