Happy Easter everyone!

Today, we celebrated the fruits of my dad's labour in the backyard with a large bitter gourd. Bitter gourd is the least of my favourite vegetables although it's meant to be good for you but as it's name suggests...it's BITTER! But for some reason we were all excited and enthusiastic with our cameras to snap away at our very first harvest of 2013. It also turned out that the bitterness was acceptable to my tastebuds this time. But I guess that's all due to my dad's wonderful cooking of the bitter gourd. It's definitely a Good Friday for our family today.

Last week, I actually baked this flourless orange cake but still wanted to share it with you all. I was scavenging for the ingredients that I already have in the kitchen to come up with something good to eat. I realised I still had oranges left and immediately craved for the flourless orange cake once again. Although this is my second time making it, I ended up boiling an extra orange by not reading the recipe carefully. What do I do with the extra orange? Make orange syrup for the cake. Oh em gee, the cake was divine and delicately moist with that extra ooze of syrup drizzled on top. Such a beautiful mistake :)

Flourless Orange Cake with Orange Syrup

(cake recipe adapted from Citrus and Candy and you can get the orange syrup recipe from here)

2 medium oranges, seedless
6 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cup almond meal

1. Wash and scrub the outside of the oranges and place the whole orange (skin and all) in a pot. Fill with cold water to cover. Place over medium-high heat and bring to boil.

2. Once it's boiled, allow it to simmer for approx. 20mins and replace with cold water and bring it to boil again. Repeat this process once again.

3. On the third round, once the oranges are boiled, let it simmer for about an hour and then drain the oranges. Set them aside to cool.

4. When the oranges have cooled, roughly chop them to pieces and remove any seeds and white pith. Place them in a blender or food processor (skin and all) and blend until you get a fine puree. Measure out 1 1/4 cups of puree and store the rest in a container (if any) for next use.

5. Preheat oven to 175°C/155°C fan-forced. Grease and flour a 23-25cm cake tin. Alternatively, you may line the base with baking paper.

6. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar and baking powder until thickened and pale in colour. Add in almond meal and mix well.

7. On low speed, gradually add in the orange puree in 2-3 batches. Beat for at least 20sec after each addition.

8. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 50min ~ 1hr or until when the skewer comes out clean from the cake.

9. Allow the cake to cool for 10min before transferring it to a cooling rack.

Time to dig into the deliciously moist cake!