Why making this cake?
This is one of the easiest and best healthy cake recipes I have ever tried! Crunchy on the outside and orange-y moist on the inside. For the flour I used what I had left in my pantry: a remaining almond flour and my homemade chufa flour.
What is chufa?
Valencian chufa (xufa) is a tiny nut that looks like a chickpea, traditionally used in the Valencian community to make a plant based milk called “orchata”, usually sold in cafes or bakeries in Valencian community and Catalonia. Why am I making it at home? Because the ready made orchata has lots of added sugar. When I prepare my orchata I sweeten it with pitted Medjoul dates and anis stars.
How to make “orchata”?
The chufa nuts are soaked overnight and blended with water, dates and anis star. The orchata is strained through a nut-bag and the pulp/fiber is dried and grinded into a flour. This flour gives my cakes a beautiful crunch.
Orange and Almond Cake
Print RecipeIngredients
- an organic orange
- a glass of plant based milk
- half a glass of sunflower oil
- 3 eggs
- 80 g of brown sugar (that can be substituted by 3-4 pitted Medjoul dates)
- 250 g of almond meal (almond flour. I used 100 g of almond flour and the rest Valencian chufa nuts flour. If these are too fancy, use white wheat flour)
- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
- a pinch of salt
Instructions
Heat up the oven at 180C (up and down)
Chop the orange to large chunks (peel included, if you have an organic one, if not, discard it)
Blitz the orange, the milk, oil with a hand blender
Add the sugar (or pitted dates) and blitz till combined
In a larger bowl add the flour, baking powder and the pinch of salt and the wet ingredients from above. Combine till you have a pourable dough
Pour the mass into a tin cake form covered with parchment paper
Bake the cake for 30-45 minutes (depending the type of flour you use) at 180C
You'll know when it's ready when you insert a thin knife blade/toothpick and it comes out dry(-ish)
Leave the cake on a rack to cool down (1-2 hours)
