Gluten Free Clementine Cake for Christmas

As a fancy pansy lady in a big frock once said, 'Let them eat Cake!' And I think she was right, cake is perfect for them, especially all those 'thems' that pop round for cuppa or would like you to contribute to a Christmas spread. At Christmas I like to eat cake randomly throughout the day, most of all with a cuppa tea. A cake to go with a cuppa tea has to be a certain sort of cake, and this recipe fits my idea of a tea time cake perfectly. It also stores and travels well, so that's useful too.

You need some time on your hands to make this one... you need to boil the clementines for 2 hours.

clementines 4 (about 300gms)

ground almonds 200gms

golden caster sugar 200gms

baking powder 1 heaped teaspoon

eggs 5

First cook the clementines in a small pan with enough water to cover, lid on at a simmer. Then drain and leave to cool. When cold cut in half and pop out any pips and then blend the rest, skins and everything, to mush in a mixer or with a hand blender. Butter and line a 21-24 cm springform tin and heat the oven to 190. Beat your eggs then add the sugar, almonds, baking powder and clementine mush and give a good mix. Pour into your tin and bake for one hour, covering the top with paper or foil to stop the top burning after the first 30 minutes. This cake is forgiving so the exact tin size is not critical. Test with a skewer if you are worried its not done.

Cool the cake in the tin first, and then pop it out onto a plate and store in a cake tin. Its better after a day as it goes all sticky and syrupy. Even better after two days, if it lasts that long. Nice on its own or with a blob of creme fraishe.

Next time I think I will have a go at a lemon version, with a lemon water icing on the top, and those little fake lemon jelly slices, or maybe some real caramelised ones. I think it will need more sugar though. I think I could even slice in half and fill with lemony butter icing or something. Maybe chocolate fudge icing in the orange one!

If you would like to make some sort of Christmas patten on this, then dust with icing sugar through a doily, or mask some of the cake off with some star shapes before you dust it. Of course you can also dust each slice as you go, using a cappuchino stencil.

We ate this Friday night, Saturday tea time, took some to my brother in laws, then ate the rest Sunday lunch and Sunday pudding. It's that nice and all gone now. Nom nom nom.