Recipe from Sweet Heart: Simply perfect recipes to satisfy every craving from the creator of Beatrix Bakes by Natalie Paull
In 1968, Claudia Roden gave us the OG orange and almond cake recipe in her bible A Book of Middle Eastern Food. I adore it, but I can’t help but want to add butter and a little salt to provide the crucial seasoned and richer spark to even this most classic of recipes. Mandarins edge out oranges with their floral scent and more interesting flavour, and smaller cakes (always cute) cook better than a large format. Old cake, new tricks!
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Makes: 6 small cakes, or one 20 cm (8 inch) cake to serve 6–8
Takes: 2–3 hours
Ingredients
4–5 large mandarins (approx. 600 g/1 lb 5 oz in total) – choose fruit where the middle diameter is a few millimetres (approx. ¼ inch) less than the diameter of your moulds
Cake batter
125 g (4½ oz) unsalted butter, squidgy soft (22°C/72°F)
105 g (3½ oz) caster (superfine) sugar
100 g (3½ oz) egg, from approx. 2 eggs
170 g (6 oz) blanched almond meal
½ teaspoon (3 g) baking powder (choose gluten-free baking powder to make the cake fully GF)
¼ teaspoon (2 g) fine sea salt
30 g (1 oz) flaked almonds
Mandarin syrup
60 g/ml (2¼ oz) fresh mandarin juice
15 g (½ oz) caster (superfine) sugar
¼ teaspoon (2 g) citric acid (optional)
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Method
Prep the mandarins Wash the mandarins and place three in a steamer basket over medium–high heat with the water bubbling away. Top up the water as needed so it doesn’t boil dry. (See Top Trix 1.) Steam for 20 minutes until a skewer pierces the rind easily. Take the steamer basket off the saucepan and remove the lid to leave the fruit to cool to lukewarm. (See Top Trix 2.) You can express-chill in the fridge or freezer.
When cool, cut six nice 2–3 mm (1/16 inch) cross-section slices from the centre of the mandarins and set aside. Trim the pedical (where the stem was attached) off each one and chop the fruit, removing any seeds as you go. Whiz in a food processor until the pieces of rind are no bigger than a grain of rice. Weigh out 200 g (7 oz) of the whizzed mandarin.
Juice the other mandarins and set aside for the syrup.
Prepare the moulds Preheat the oven to 170°C (350°F). Spray the base and sides of six 8 cm (3¼ inch) diameter, 4 cm (1½ inch) deep round dariole or silicone moulds with cooking oil spray. Place a snug circle of baking paper in the base of each one, then place a mandarin slice in each.
Make the batter In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or use hand-beaters), beat the butter and sugar on medium speed for around 8 minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the egg in two batches, beating well after each addition.
Scrape the butter and egg mix into a wide bowl. Add the mandarin pulp, almond meal, baking powder and salt and fold thoroughly until no streaks remain. Divide the batter between the moulds – approx. 100 g (3½ oz) each.
Place the flaked almonds into a shallow baking tray.
Bake! Place the cake moulds on a baking tray, set a timer for 20–25 minutes and bake. At 10 minutes, place the tray of almond flakes in the bottom of the oven to toast. Continue to cook the cakes until they have a mottled orange and dark brown surface. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean (internal temp should be 95–100°C/200°F) – you can’t overbake a moist cake like this.
Make the mandarin syrup while the cake bakes. Mix all the syrup ingredients together and simmer in a saucepan over medium heat (or heat in the microwave for 2–3 minutes in 1-minute bursts) until the sugar has dissolved – around 1 minute. Set aside.
Finish the cakes Let the cakes cool in the moulds for 10 minutes, then invert the cakes out of their moulds so the mandarin is on the top. Place on a shallow tray lined with baking paper. Pour the glaze over the top and let them sit in a light pooling of the syrup. Take small pinchfuls of the toasted almond flakes and lightly press them around the mandarin slice. Cool completely.
Keep and store Store at room temp for up to 3–4 days, then refrigerate for 2–3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
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Top trix 1: I steam the citrus instead of using the original boiling method so the fruit doesn’t ‘gluggify’ (that’s a word) the batter as much. 2 Lukewarm is the optimal temperature for the mandarin so the cake doesn’t have a sluggish start to baking. You can steam the mandarins in advance and chill but gently warm (double boiler or microwave) it back to room temp before finishing the batter. If, when prepping the fruit, you see the pith is more white than translucent, it is undercooked. Just re-steam until translucent.
Adaptrix:
Larger tin Bake this in a 20 cm (8 inch) tin. Don’t choose a smaller tin than this, as the cake is best baked ‘efficiently’ due to its high-liquid-ratio batter. A tin with smaller dimensions will mean the outside of the cake will be overbaked before the middle has cooked.
Cardi C Cream 200 g (7 oz) thick (double/heavy) cream (45% fat), 50 g (1¾ oz) condensed milk and ¼ teaspoon (1 g) freshly ground cardamom to soft peaks. Load into a piping bag fitted with a large plain (size 13–15) nozzle. Pipe little
peaks over the tops of the completely cooled cakes.
A little tap of freshly grated mandarin zest is always nice to finish.
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Other recipes from Sweet Heart —
Honey-poached quince
Passionfruit & coconut bombe alaska
Sweet Heart: Simply perfect recipes to satisfy every craving from the creator of Beatrix Bakes by Natalie Paull
‘Images and text from Sweet Heart by Natalie Paull, photography by Rochelle Eagle. Murdoch Books RRP $55.00.’
