I had surprisingly specific reasons for choosing this cake for Bake 3:

1. I love citrus cakes
2. The daughter loves citrus cakes
3. The husband loves almond cakes
4. The friend who was stopping in for tea loves citrus cakes too
5. The friend who’s allergic to almonds had already visited and brought chocolate cake, then decamped to Lancashire for the week, so I wouldn’t need to worry about her accidentally eating this one (I actually kicked her out of the house before I started making it. She’s violently allergic, and I didn’t think you wanted pictures of her vomiting at the sight of almonds.)
6. The recipe assured me it would keep well and get better over the week which, since I was running away to York for the weekend and leaving the husband alone with the daughter, seemed like a good idea. And indeed, by the time I returned, two days later, he’d eaten most of it. He claims the daughter helped. I have my doubts.
7. I really love citrus cakes.

Anyway, I found the recipe here at What Rachel Ate. I foresee many bakes from Rachel’s site – it’s gorgeous.

Here’s what you do.

Ingredients

• 1 orange
• 1 lemon
• 4 eggs
• ½ tsp salt
• 300g sugar
• 125ml sunflower oil
• 150g ground almonds
• 150g flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder

Method

• Cover the lemon and orange with water in a pan and boil for 30 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool.

• Cut the lemon and orange in half. Scoop the flesh out of the lemon and discard, remove any pips from the orange.
• Blend the orange and lemon rind to a purée.
• Whisk the eggs and salt together until fluffy. Slowly whisk in the sugar, then the oil.
• Fold in the orange and lemon purée.

• Fold in the ground almonds, baking powder and flour, without over-mixing
• Spoon the mixture into a greased and lined (or silicone) 23cm tin.

• Bake for 1 hour at 180C, or until springy on top and skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
• Sprinkle with icing sugar to make extra pretty. Or in my case, since the daughter was helping, just dump a whole lot of it in the vague vicinity and hope for the best.

It came out perfect, and delicious, and was still good when I polished off the last piece a week later. My excuse? I needed to clean the cake dome ready for all the cake I’m baking for the daughter’s Teddy Bears’ Tea Party for her third birthday.

There’s going to be a lot of cake here this weekend…