Flourless Orange/Lemon Cake

[Charski]

LOL! Well I'm laughing at myself - I made the strawberry version, cooked it same as the lemon one, it looked GORGEOUS, puffed on top and golden brown. Took it out and put it on a rack and looked at it 3 minutes later and it was trying to FALL! So, back in the oven for another 8 minutes. Let it cool for 6, tried to turn it out on the rack, no go. Pried around all the little Bundt pan flutes with a wooden popsicle stick - STILL no go. Pried some more, turned it over, and yep, it popped out - but left some of the top in the bottom of the pan! Aaaarggghhh!!

So, I think this is the deal - the strawberry puree was somewhat runnier than the lemon, although I let it drain through a fine sieve before adding. Also, it's a higher sugar content (and I used only 1 cup of erythritol with this, because I had frozen the berries with DaVinci SF strawberry syrup on them) and that too may contribute to the sticking.

BUT - the flavor is DIVINE!! [swoons] I WILL make it again, but next time, I will use a 9" x 13" pan and just plan on cutting pieces out of it as we need them.

Next - frosting - plan is cream cheese, whipping cream, water, SF strawberry gelatin powder, more sweetness if needed (DV SF strawberry syrup, perhaps) and whip the snot out of it til fluffy. You MIGHT get a picture!

[Tweaker Geek]

Char - I was torn between the icing with heavy cream etc. and the one with cream cheese. I'll probably try the cream cheese version next, especially since you said you liked it even better. The flavor of the icing I made is wonderful though - as a matter of fact I'm off to have a slice of cake right now!

[Melle]

I bought the blueberries, today...going to try that version, tomorrow. I'm hoping for a "blueberry muffin" taste.

[shadowzip]

I am planning on making this soon, it looks and sounds wonderful.

I just wanted to say I was cruising cooking sites last night and found this on Nigella Lawson's site
Nigella.com

[alex57]

I am making this cake this morning. However do have a question before going any further. I cooked my fruit, 1 orange, 2 lemons, for 2 hours. Did notice that the fruit floated. Have just pureed the fruit, took a taste and found it bitter. Is this normal? Was it because by floating part was not in the water itself? Any ideas? Don't want to waste the rest of the ingredients if things are not right.
Would appreciate any feed back. TIA

[Charski]

Don't worry about the floating part. Mine do that too, as long as they are all soft and mushy you should be fine. Did you remove any and all seeds?

[alex57]

Only found 1 seed, which I discarded. Did notice that the top of the orange was firmer. The lemons were extremely soft. Might be best to start over.

[Tweaker Geek]

My lemons floated too but I just rotated them a couple of times during the cooking and they were fine.

[alex57]

Thinking it over, realized my lemons were very large with thick rinds. Maybe too much pith. Should look for thin skinned ones for the next attempt.

Thx for the comments.

[Charski]

Alex, my lemons are Meyers from my own tree - they are also thicker-skinned than "store-bought" lemons - but they work fine once you add the sweetener and such. I wouldn't worry about it - it DOES taste bitter on its own - not much sweetness there to counteract it til you work your magic on it!

[Tater Head]

Ginny gave me taste a of hers when we met for lunch yesterday. It was really good and I loved the frosting. Will make this soon myself.



Debbie

[rexsreine]

And now I'm off to the kitchen to make Carolyn's pineapple version. Glad you liked it, Tater. We have polished off that whole cake...!

Ginny

[Tater Head]

I made the cake today and it's cooling right now. It didn't rise at all. I had the egg yokes and sugar tripled in volume, very fluffy and yes i did check the baking powder for freshness too, It was fresh. The batter tasted bitter, but maybe after it cools and I taste it cooked it will be ok, if not then next time I will use only 1 cup of the puree and bump up the baking powder to 2 tsp. I boiled 3 lemons and 1 orange, I have enough puree left over for another cake.

Will let you know how it taste later.

Debbie

[lene]

I made this yesterday, and it was a big hit. It didn't raise hugely, but somewhat, and it didn't fall at all. Made a moist, dense, "normal" cake. I found that my orange puree was quite bitter, so I ended up using more erythritol and Fiberfit to sweeten it than expected, but the cake turned out wonderful, only mildly sweet. Jeff and Danny were so pleased with it, I'm going to try variations on this. I think my next attempt will involve subbing sour cream for the fruit puree, and adding some cocoa to the almond flour, to make a chocolate cake. I may add a little butter, too. Will let you know how it tunrs out. That'll be sometime this weekend.

[Tater Head]

Well I'm not too happy with my cake, it doesn't taste anywhere near as good as Ginny's did. The pithy taste came through very strong, probably because I used part orange instead of all lemon. It didn't fall at all, but it didn't rise at all that much either. I think the basic pound cake with lemon zest would be just as good imo. Mine was too moist/wet as well, even after cooking 60 minutes.

I will ask Ginny what if anything she did different.

Debbie....

[rexsreine]

I sent Tater a long private message about my first cake so I won't bore all the rest of you with it.

Last night I made the pineapple/orange version. Not having an orange, I drained a 20-oz can of pineapple very well and put it in the blender. Got 1.5 cups puree. Used rest of ingredients as outlined by Carolyn but added 4 packets of True Orange for the orange taste. Did have to add some extra Splenda drops for sweetness. Cake rose somewhat, but there was - like the other cake - a kind sunken trough in the middle. I had to lower oven after 32 minutes baking and cover with foil. Cake took 53 minutes to bake and I let it sit in the pan for 10 min. This time, the cake did not completely flatten out while cooling, but it did "fan out" somewhat. I made a cream cheese/pineapple puree/orange flavoring frosting. Texture on this cake is different, a bit spongy and it seems some of the pineapple liquid separated out of the puree and pooled at the bottom of the pan where it became more caramelized. This part of the cake was quite spongy but very tasty. Overall, good flavor and DH has no complaints. At this point, I'm wondering if the cake needs more dry ingredients to hold its shape better, say another quarter cup of almond flour, or a tablespoon or two of oat flour, oat fiber, or Kevin's flour blend or even a bit of coconut flour. The batter seems awfully loose to me. Or maybe I should be using 5 eggs and not 6. In any case, seems we Arizona desert rats have a little more tweaking to do...

Ginny

[theislandgirl]

I guess I can't hold back any longer...

I must point out that citrus has a great deal of soluble fiber in the peel; there are actual fiber products made from citrus peel. In which case, the soluble fiber, when cooked as it is in this recipe, adds considerably to the body of the cake, much like some not/Starch, not/Sugar, Bake-Ability, xanthan gum, guar gum, methylcellulose, etc., would do.

This is probably one of the main reasons the cake (which is supposed to be dense, by the way, with not a lot of rise, but not a lot of fall either, a "pound cake") does hold together as well as it does in the original recipe, because soluble fiber is usually a "substitute" for the gluten in flour and the texturizing effects of sugars. And has been in use for many years in gluten free baking, long before we started LC sugarfree baking...

So other fruits without as much natural soluble fiber (like pineapple) won't do it; will have a tendency to separate.

As for making the original recipe, following it quite closely and still having the cake falling or being underdone, the very strong likelihood is that the oven temperature is not correct, or the cake is too low or too high in the oven (outside done before inside, that kind of thing). An oven thermometer is a cheap investment and well worth it. I never bake without it. And also, convection or fan ovens tend to cook faster and cook the outside faster, too, so one needs to use the "lower the recipe temp by 25 degrees" rule of thumb with those (and you have to know if the thermostat is accurate, so again, an oven thermometer is invaluable; even in a new oven which may not be calibrated correctly out of the box).

Hope this helps.

[CarolynF]

Ginny: I do think the "orange part" does give it some body and also with the coconut..Maybe some almond flour would help, too. Orange and the Pineapple Orange are my favorites.

I did make an apple cake version in a 9 x 12 pan. One can of pureed SF apple pie filling with cinnamon was added to the rest of the ingredients. I knew it wouldn't rise in my bundt pan and was afraid it would be too wet, so the 9 x 12 pan worked great.

I also bought 2 bananas to try a banana cake..I will also use some banana extract.

I bake mine usually at 325ish..but it only takes 30 minutes in my bundt pan..

[rexsreine]

Hmmm...Jude's explanation of the soluble fiber component is most interesting. I imagine Charski's strawberry version might have had the same issue. I do need to get an oven thermometer! Have had them in the past; in fact, threw one out about a month ago as it seemed to have melted somewhat and wasn't measuring much of anything at all. Anyone have recommendations for a good/better one or should I just by another cheapie at the grocery store and keep replacing it?

DH wants Aunt Ruth's Cake next so it might be awhile till I fool around with this recipe. But I think it is an admirable cake with numerous possibilities and I love that it is not loaded with fat.

Thanks, Carolyn and Jude, for your comments.

Ginny

[Soobee]

Jude, then could you compensate and add soluble fiber to the recipe for low fiber fruits? Maybe one of the ingredients you suggested or oat fiber?

[lene]

When I made mine, I did increase the almond flour to 1 3/4 cups, and I added 1/4 cup of vanilla whey protein powder, because just using 1 1/2 cups seemed like too little. I notice the recipe posted at the link above for Nigella's clementine cake used 2 1/3 cups of almond flour, and the pound cake recipe posted in the thread uses 2 cups. Perhaps 1 1/2 cups isn't quite enough?

Oh, and I used 6 jumbo eggs.

Hope the variation I want to try this weekend turns out well! I'll probably be using the slightly higher amount of dry ingredients...

[rexsreine]

Well, I got a huge smile on my face as I read Lene's post. My gut instinct said the batter was simply too loose to hold much of a structure and Lene's addition of an extra quarter cup of almond flour and a quarter cup of protein powder confirms that. From what I've seen an done in LC baking, whey protein powder sucks up even more liquid than almond flour, too. Thanks for recounting your experience. Lene.

Ginny

[lene]

No problem! I'm thinking that since this recipe seems to have worked as written for some of us, and not for others, it may be down to levels of humidity in different areas, different sized eggs, minute differences in measuring, etc., all of which could possibly make some batters need additional dry ingredients, doncha think?

[Charski]

Yep, I think there are too many variables! LOL!

However, I must say - I've made the lemon version twice with ingredients as listed - using jumbo eggs - and it's been perfect. So maybe Jude is on the right track here, other fruit requires additional bulking - I was thinking a little raw wheat bran or some psyllium husk or just some Thicken Thin Not/Starch.

Definitely is worth the experimentation!

And I told DH next time I'd make that strawberry cake in a 9 x 13 pan - I think it will fare better. He is in LOVE with that cake and the icing I made for it!

[Tater Head]

Just wanted to report I made this cake on Wednesday and it was bitter,and bitter also on Thursday as well. Today I just had a piece with a cup of coffee and it taste just fine, no bitter taste at all.

After talking with Ginny about this off line, I think my bitter pith problem was from the large orange I used. I did boil 3 lemons with it though so the ratio I thought would be fine, guess not. We love the frosting with cream cheese

How are you guys able to make this with pineapple? (which I love) my 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple says 2 servings at 17 carbs each, with only <1 fiber, that's high when you add all the rest of the ingredients in.

Deb

[CarolynF]

Hi friends..

Things to add if your batter is too wet:
extra almond flour
some coconut flour
some protein powder

I think we need to eyeball the "batter" and it should be cakelike, not soupy or we aren't going to have a good result.

The lemon was alot more bitter than the orange. It's hard to get sweet lemons here..
I didn't mind the tartness, but my friend didn't care for it at all.. Each to his own..

[CarolynF]

Okay..Here is a flourless flawless almond torte recipe I found on-line from Annie:

This is a light, moist cake with a superb almond flavor that will win everyone over with their first bite. The author Charlie Cascio loves it so much it is the cake he chose for his own wedding.

Carolyn's notes: They used 6 eggs to 2 cups of almonds to make it more cakelike. For those of us with "wet cake" this might the key to a firmer product. I still think you could add the orange/
lemons with this recipe. Of course, the sweetener would need to be increased.

INGREDIENTS
6 fresh organic eggs
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1/3 cup sweetener (sugar, maple syrup, or honey*)
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract
2 cups almond meal (see Note)
*If using honey, use only ¼ cup

1. Separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs. Place whites with cream of tartar in a mixing bowl and beat until stiff, but not dry. Gently fold in the sweetener of your choice. Do this slowly so you do not break down the bubbles in the egg whites.

2. Beat the egg yolks and slowly fold them into the mixture as gently as possible. Add vanilla and almond extract. Sprinkle the