ROASTED ORANGE & HAZELNUT CAKE

13th September 2013 – This is just a little bit exciting… starting this week I am sharing my Homegrown Kitchen recipes in Stuff.co.nz newspapers around New Zealand and on Stuff.co.nz. Being asked to write a nationwide recipe column is a dream come true after quietly sharing recipes and photography here for the last 5 years. Not a lot will change around here, I will continue to share recipes once they are published every fortnight. With seasonal ingredients from the garden and local surrounds continuing to be the focus – and maybe a little less chit-chat from me now I have a word count to adhere to!

Roasted Orange & Hazelnut Cake

This cake has a gloriously light, almost sponge-like, texture. The cake batter is very runny that sets lightly as it cooks.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 3 medium oranges – my homegrown oranges veer on the side of small so use 2 oranges if particularly large
  • knob of butter about 30g
  • 2 teaspoons runny honey
  • 2/3 cup ground toasted hazelnuts *see ingredient note
  • 1 cup white flour gluten-free: use 2/3 cup white rice flour + 1/3 cup tapioca
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder gluten-free if required
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 4 free-range eggs

Instructions

  • Preheat oven 180 degrees Celsius.
  • Trim the rind away from the orange flesh (a little pith remaining is OK) and chop the flesh into wedges (aiming for around 250-300g flesh). Arrange the wedges in a single layer in a baking dish, dot with butter and drizzle with honey. Bake for 20-25 minutes until softened and beginning to caramelise (*See note below). Cool a little.
  • Turn down the oven to 160 degrees. Line and grease a 20cm cake tin.
  • In a mixing bowl combine the hazelnuts, flour, baking powder and baking soda.
  • Place the orange wedges into a food processor, add the sugar and blend until smooth. With the engine running, add the eggs one at a time. Pour this mixture over the dry ingredients and use a spatula to fold together into a runny batter. Pour into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is lightly golden and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then transfer to a rack to cool completely. Serve with creamy yoghurt.
  • *Note: Some oranges will be juicier than others. I tested the recipe with several types of oranges and had about 1-2 teaspoons caramelised juice around the oranges once cooked. It is important the orange wedges are roasted in a shallow dish in a single layer so they can dry out and concentrate in flavour (similar to roasting vegetables). If after 20 minutes the orange pieces are surrounded by juice pour off the excess juice, turn up the oven to 200C and cook for a further 5-10 minutes until tender.

Notes

*Ingredient note: I used toasted and ground hazelnuts for their complementary flavour to orange. I often pick up a bag of unshelled hazelnuts from the market to hand-crack and add to cooking, the extra time involved makes the cake a treat. If hazelnuts are unavailable, substitute with ground almonds (almond meal). Toast the whole hazelnuts in the bottom of the oven while the orange wedges are cooking. Once the skins crack (about 10 minutes) tip into a tea towel and rub away the skins. Cool, then finely grind in a spice grinder or food processor.

This spring recipe uses plump oranges fresh from the garden. With the classic Sicilian boiled orange cake in mind, I set to the task of creating an orange cake with a little less bitter aftertaste that comes when using whole oranges. I recently added orange wedges to a savoury tray bake of chicken, kumara and onions with wonderful results, so it was a natural progression to try roasted oranges in cake.

The pre-cooking of the oranges does add to the prep time but this can be done ahead of time. The sticky caramelised orange wedges make an intensely orange-flavoured cake that is difficult to achieve when using orange zest alone.

*Recipe first published 12th September 2017 on Stuff.co.nz.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Join the Conversation

  1. This looks wonderful. What is the quantity of sugar and hazelnuts please. Recipe has a question mark.

    1. Hi Silvana, thanks for letting me know. There was a slight glitch with my website but all fixed now – see recipe for quantities.
      Happy cooking!
      Nicola

  2. What a beautiful tecipe. I am adding to my list of things to do this weekend…. bake yummy orange hazelnut cake… yum. Thank you!

    1. Hi Eden, I hope you enjoy the cake. It gets gobbled up pretty quickly around here!

  3. Where will you be doing your workshop in Central Otago?

    1. Hi Anna, I am still finalising the details – I am hoping to find a venue in Wanaka if you have any suggestions…
      Thanks, Nicola

  4. Hi I love this recipe but want to check with you why it didn’t turn out as hoped. Although tasty it came out flat, heavy and rubbery. I’m sorry ti have to write this as I love all your recipes and want to know what I did wrong.
    The oranges didn’t caramelise and we’re swimming in liquid..perhaps was too much butter? 30 g seems more than a knob. I want to try again but don’t want the same result. I followed the recipe as is. Can you please help work out why it was so heavy and rubbery. Thanks

    1. Hi Silvana, thanks for letting me know. I have heard from several others that have made the cake and it came out well so not sure what could have happened here. Obviously oranges can vary and mine had very little liquid once cooked just a little caramelised juices at the bottom of the pan – I made it with my homegrown oranges and some from the supermarket to test the recipes several times. Baking powder and oven temps can also vary and effect the resulting cake. What I would recommend next time is too cook the oranges at a slightly higher temp, maybe 190C so the juices evaporate more, if there is lots of juice then just use the orange wedges and leave the juice behind. To give your baking powder a boost as it can loose it’s rising efficiency if stored for some time, add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda to the dry ingredients (along with the baking powder). This will give you a nice light cake even if the oranges are juicier. I will add a note to the recipes about this for others.
      Good luck!
      Nicola

  5. How many grams of orange once they’re prepped (peeled and “depithed”). Thanks. Looking forward to baking this!

    1. Hi Nina, you want to have around 250-300g orange flesh once the rind and pith is cut away.
      Enjoy! Nicola

      1. Hi again Nicola,
        I made the cake yesterday, following your recipe exactly, and everyone loved it!
        The only thing I did different was to add the dry mixture to the food processor after blending orange, sugar and egg . That way I had one less dish to clean. 😉

        1. Wonderful to hear Nina, and good idea to blend it all in the food processor.
          Thanks for the lovely feedback 🙂

  6. Kerrin Cahill says:

    I just made this cake and it came out perfectly.I cooked the orange longer and turned up to 170 till most of the juice had evaporated.I usually make the jewish whole boiled Orange cake this is better.
    Thank You

    1. Hi Kerrin
      So great to hear you enjoyed the cake! I do find oranges vary, our ones are less juicy than the ones I used from the supermarket. The main thing is to cook the oranges until the juices have mostly caramelised in the dish.
      Happy cooking!

  7. Kerrin Cahill says:

    Hi Nicola,
    I just love this cake and I have made it 4 times now.Friends love it but say it is not orange enough.I just added the zest of 2 of the Oranges and it worked well.

    1. Hi Kerrin, so great to hear you are enjoying the cake 🙂 Oranges will vary, mine are quite fleshy and flavoursome compared to some I have bought. Adding orange zest is good idea to give it more flavour if needed. Happy baking 🙂

  8. Congratulations on the column, that is fantastic!

    I am not much of a baker, but I am definitely going to try this recipe..

    1. It’s a lovely and simple cake. Enjoy!

  9. Oh! I just realised this post is old… you have probably been writing for Stuff for a while now – haha. Congratulations anyway 🙂

    1. Thanks Leonie, it has been over a year 😉 Love being able to share my recipes on a nationwide platform. I hope you enjoy the cake.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Close
Nicola Galloway Homegrown Kitchen © Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.
Close