Hey all, I am back with a new recipe today, and it was inspired by Cake Week on last week’s Bake Off. For the signature challenge, the bakers had to make tray-bakes, and they were all incredible.

So this week, if you haven’t guessed already, I’ve made a traybake! Woo! My flavour of choice is Orange and Cardamom. I’ve wanted to make something with Cardamom for months and months, and I think that now the weather is getting a little chillier as we get into autumn, it’s time I made a comforting, delicious gluten free traybake using it.

This recipe calls for pureeing a whole orange, so you get the whole fruit, and nothing but the fruit in flavour. I used my nutribullet blender, but you can use a hand blender for this too. Because it uses the whole orange, it means you don’t have to use margarine, so this bake is entirely milk free.

The cardamom in this recipe makes the orange taste more juicy, and the addition of ground almonds allows this bake to have a heavenly moist, and yet light texture. It’s bound to go down well at any upcoming coffee morning, bake sale or party.

Gluten Free Orange and Cardamom Traybake)

• Servings: 16
• Time: 2 hours (inc cooling time)
• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

A comforting and zesty orange and cardamom traybake cake, made with ground almonds.

Credit: thecoeliacsloth.com

Ingredients

For the cake

• 1 large orange
• 100g Ground Almonds
• 100g Gluten Free Self-Raising Flour
• 175g Light Soft Brown Sugar
• 1tsp Xanthan Gum
• Zest of 1 Orange
• 1tsp Baking Powder
• 1tsp Ground Cardamom
• 4 Medium Free Range Eggs

To Decorate

• Icing Sugar
• A splash of juiced orange
• Candied orange peel
• Toasted Flaked Almonds

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 170°c
2. Place the orange in a saucepan of water, bring to the boil and simmer for half an hour. Leave to cool.
3. Once the orange is cooled, carefully chop it into pieces, and remove any seeds/pips.
4. Using a blender, puree the whole orange.
5. Next, whisk the eggs, and gradually add the sugar, keep on whisking until fully combined and it creates a creamy thick texture. .
6. Gently fold in the flour, ground almonds, orange zest and the rest of the remaining cake ingredients.
7. Pour into a greased or lined 23cm square baking tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until risen, and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool.
9. For the icing, mix the icing sugar in a bowl with the orange juice.
10. Pour the icing over the top of the cake, and then sprinkle over some flaked almonds and candied orange peel.
11. Leave the icing to set, and your tray-bake cake is ready to enjoy with a cuppa!