Clementine Cake! So good, and so healthy!

My mum wanted me to use up some of the many clementines we had lying around the kitchen...my family likes these little oranges, but there are just too many in a bag to finish all at once.
So I did a quick search for clementine/orange cake because for some reason I was really craving for some cake. And my search page was flooded with this one recipe. I looked it over, and I was shocked.
No added oils or fats, no flour in sight, and just five ingredients?! I thought this cake would not, could not work.
I was wrong.
The recipe yielded a beautiful golden-yellow cake with a cool and refreshing taste. I stuck it in the fridge after a day and it was even better cold! I loved the citrusy fragrance and flavour of it. The clementine juices seemed to be absorbed by the almonds as the days went by.

Oh yeah, this is important: IT IS MUCH MUCH BETTER A DAY LATER THAN FRESH OUT OF THE OVEN! Boy, was this concept hard for my household to understand. Except after they had a bit on the first day, while it was still warm, they didn't really like it. Something to do with the texture. My sis hates nuts. Or anything healthy, for that matter. And my dad, who once told me to look for recipes without much flour in it, told me to just stick with the flour. Psht. I knew it.

Anyhoo, I certainly liked it. It was a nice change from the typical cake, and I was getting tired of chocolate anyway. Actually, I don't think I've ever really loved chocolate cake. Clogs up my tastebuds too much.

Without further ado, here's the recipe!

Oh yeah, I now have springform pans! But the creases on the cake are from parchment paper. Oh well, it doesn't look as nice but I don't want to get so much stuff on my pans. Plus it's easier to take out this way.

Clementine Cake- Smitten Kitchen
Adapted from Nigella Lawson

4 to 5 clementines (about 375grams/slightly less than 1 pound total weight)
6 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (225 grams) sugar
2 1/3 cups (250 grams) ground almonds
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

My boiled clementines. So soft. I just chopped them up by hand.

Put the clementines in a pot with cold water to cover, bring to the boil, and cook for 2 hours. Drain and, when cool, cut each clementine in half and remove the seeds. Then finely chop the skins, pith, and fruit in the processor (or by hand, of course).

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

Butter and line an 8-inch (21 centimeter) springform pan with parchment paper. (I used a 9-inch, it worked fine.)

Beat the eggs. Add the sugar, almonds, and baking powder. Mix well, adding the chopped clementines.

I ground up blanched almonds that I had at home...they'd been in a fridge for a while so they were pretty easy to break up. Then I switched to a grinder-thing. You could use any type of ground almond, even with the skins on. More nutritious that way!

Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes*, when a skewer will come out clean; you might have to cover the cake with foil after about 20 to 30 minutes to stop the top from over-browning.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool, in the pan on a rack. When the cake is cold, you can take it out of the pan and dust it with powdered sugar. I made a glaze of powdered sugar and a tablespoon of clementine juice because I was convinced the cake would be too bitter. It was not necessary. Nigella says the cake is best on the second day, but ours never made it that long.

Variations: Nigella says she’s also made this with an equal weight of oranges and lemons, in which case the sugar is increased to 1 1/4 cups.

*Some people who have made this think their cakes turned out too dark and burnt, so you may want to start checking your ovens at the 45 minute mark or so, just to make sure you don't char it. As for me, maybe my oven runs cool, because mine sure wasn't done at 40 minutes! It took the full 60 minutes for me.

Ta-daa! Clementine cake!