The Orange Cake with Almonds First Version

At my nephew's birthday last month in LA, our talented and beautiful and smart hostess served a cake for dessert that was so wonderful I immediately asked for the recipe. Turns out it was a recipe from Molly's blog Orangette, and she calls it a Marmalade Cake. I thought that it would use marmalade, that wonderful tart jam made with citrus fruit. Instead she makes a fresh citrus paste with a boiled and cooled lemon and orange, ground up in a food processor.

Today I tried making the cake and followed it almost to the letter, with only two changes (which is unusual for me...I often change half a dozen things). I used Trader Joe's almond meal instead of toasting and grinding my own almonds. The only other difference was that I folded in the flour mixture at the very end.

It made a delicious, moist cake with an interesting texture that combined a bit of chew from the almond meal and a wonderful, moist quality from the fruit.  The only part that I didn't really enjoy was the bitterness from the citrus pith. I think that next time I may cut back significantly on that part of the fruit, while still keeping the peel and the orange pulp. I plan on making this cake for Sweetie's birthday bash as a vegan version, which is easy because the only thing needing replacement is the egg and I have vegan egg replacer which will work fine. When I do, I'll post it so that you can see what difference, if any, the eggs make.

In the meantime, if you have a lemon and an orange, some almonds, some olive oil, some eggs, and the usual cake staples of flour, sugar, salt and baking powder, you can make this delicious cake for yourself. Just click on the link above to go to Molly's blog (Marmalade Cake) for the recipe. I'll bet you end up bookmarking it. It's that good.