“Have you got the crack cake today?” The first time one of our regular customers asked that question at the café, my team didn’t understand. Later, it became the new name for our Spanish orange cake. Yes, it is delicious and can be addictive. 

Planning menus and cooking healthy meals on wellness retreats meant that I catered for a lot of dietary requirements; gluten-free being the most often requested. My principle is to try to avoid using gluten-free flour mix or substitutes and work with natural ingredients as much as possible. In order to achieve that, I like looking at more traditional recipes from a time when “free from” foods were not on supermarket shelves. 

This Spanish orange cake is naturally gluten-free and dairy-free and easy to make. 

Ingredients:

2 large oranges

1 cup of caster sugar

6 eggs

2 cups of ground almonds

Dark chocolate chips (optional, but really tasty)

Boil the two whole oranges – without peeling – in enough water to cover them for about 2 hours. This step can be done the day before, or a few hours earlier.

Preheat your oven to 170 Celsius, line your cake tin or loaf tin with baking paper (I prefer using non-clip cake tin for this as the mixture is quite liquid)

Once the oranges are cool enough to handle, cut them into quarters. Then, Using a handheld mixer or smoothie maker, turn them into liquid. Add the six egg and the sugar, mix well using the mixer.

Finally, fold in the ground almonds and the dark chocolate chips.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven. Let it completely cool before cutting into it.