Whole Orange and Lemon Cake with Cinnamon Whipped Mascarpone

Whole Orange and Lemon Cake with Cinnamon Whipped Mascarpone
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Whole Orange and Lemon Cake with Cinnamon Whipped Mascarpone

Recipe by Peter Sawkins
0.0 from 0 votes
Difficulty: Simple
Servings

8-10

servings
Hands on time

1

hour 

This cake is super soft and moist, thanks to the whole fruits, oil and almonds in the batter. It also stores incredibly well, and if covered airtight without the topping, it typically stays moist and good to eat for at least 5 days. Using the whole fruit gives a wonderful flavour, and with the lemon involved, it has a pleasant marmalade-like bitterness. However, if you want it to be a sweeter cake, you can switch out the lemon for an extra orange.

Ingredients

  • For the Cake

  • 2 small oranges

  • 1 lemon 

  • 4 eggs

  • 180g sugar

  • 1/2 tsp salt

  • 100ml olive oil 

  • 150g ground almonds 

  • 90g self-raising flour (can use a gluten free flour blend) 

  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

  • For the Topping

  • 75g mascarpone

  • 30g icing sugar

  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

  • 150ml double cream

Directions

  • Preheat the oven to 160°C (320ºF) fan. Grease and base line a 20cm/8″ cake tin. 
  • Make the cake
  • Weight the oranges and lemons, they should weigh at least 200g. If not, add another orange. Place the whole fruits in a saucepan with a lid. Cover with water and simmer for about 25 minutes until very soft. Drain the fruits, slice them in half and discard any pips. Leave to cool slightly.
  • Whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt in a stand mixer until light and foamy, not taking the mix all the way to ribbon stage. Stream in the oil while whisking. 
  • Blitz the cooled fruit in a food processor to a chunky purée. Add 200g of the purée with the almonds, flour and baking powder to the egg mixture and fold through. You don’t have to be overly gentle here, it’s quite a robust cake mix.
  • Pour this into the lined tin and bake for about 40 to 45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean and it has a gentle bubble when you listen to it. 
  • Leave it to cool for 10-15 minutes before turning out and leaving to cool.
  • Make the topping
  • Add the mascarpone, sugar and cinnamon to a bowl and stir until smooth.
  • Add the double cream and gently whisk until combined with the mascarpone. Then whisk the mixture until it thickens and just holds its shape.
  • Spread the cream onto the cake and top with some small slices of orange and lemon which have been dried slightly by sitting on kitchen roll for a couple of minutes.

Recipe Video

Notes

  • Dairy-Free: The cake recipe is dairy-free. It is so moist and flavourful that it will eat well without the cream topping.
  • Gluten-Free: This cake works very well gluten-free. Just use a gluten-free self-raising flour blend and make sure the baking powder is also suitable.

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31 Comments

  1. Beautiful cake and love that it’s dairy free – will definitely be giving this a go!

    Also love the check box ingredients list, really practical 😊

    • Hi Karen, the ground almonds are quite important for the moist texture of the cake. I haven’t tried it, but I would imagine you could substitute the almonds for some extra self-raising flour. It may end up being not quite as moist, but I would imagine it would still bake up well.

      If you do this, I would suggest removing the almonds, increasing the self-raising flour to 200g, increasing the oil by 2 tbsp and reducing the baking powder to 3/4 tsp. I haven’t tested this at all, so can’t guarantee it, but that would be my starting point if I was testing this out without the almonds.

      If you give it a go, please let me know how it goes! I may try this in future months to build up a new nut free recipe for this cake.

    • Thanks for sharing! Such a wonderful recipe. Due to allergies I made a couple of adjustments to make it gluten, almond and dairy free – gf flour, coconut flour (1/3 of the almonds weight + an extra egg) and substituted the mascarpone for plant based cream cheese. It was still moist but might add a teeny bit more oil when I do it again.

  6. Hi Peter love this and so glad you can share it can you freeze this then top it with the cream mixture when defrosted ?

  7. Heya Peter! It’s not that I want to try this, I MUST try this! But do you have any suggestions for those of us without a food processor … thanks!!!

    • Hi Joe, awesome that you’re excited to try! Yes, you could try using a blender, a stick blender, a mortar and pestle, or you can just chop them up with a knife (I’ve done this, but it does take a bit of time). You just need to get it into a rough paste with not too big chunks. Because the fruits are so soft when boiled, it’s not too difficult. Good luck with the recip!

  8. Hi Peter, what topping for the cake would you recommend if I was going to make the whole cake and topping dairy free?

    • For the topping a dairy-free buttercream made with margarine/dairy-free butter could be nice. But this cake is actually moist enough that it really doesn’t need a topping and is still a very tasty tea-time cake just on its own.

  9. Peter,

    So, I’ve tried this recipe but I think I’m not converting the baking times correctly. You often write Fahrenheit temps but also with the term “fan”. Are you referring to convection ovens?

    My result looked like yours but when I cut into it, it looked exactly like the cake that got Sura sent home during Chocolate Week. My range oven is not convection but I baked at the Fahrenheit given anyway. It took 65 minutes rather than 40-45 so I’m guessing I need to use a convection oven (which I have).

    I’ll try the recipe again because everyone at work wants this. But I did want to reach out and ask you about the Fahrenheit/fan question.

    • Hi Elizabeth, thanks for your question. Yes, “fan” is what we call convection ovens in the UK. Typically, I would recommend you go 20º higher temp with a non-convection oven.

      I hope the bake will turn out well and your colleagues will enjoy it!

      • Peter,

        I am making this cake once more. Should I add orange zest? I recently viewed a technique of “mushing” orange zest with the sugar which gives the sugar a fabulous scent and extremely tasty. I was using it in cinnamon rolls. I thought I would give this cake another try and maybe add zest mixed with the sugar. Too much?

        • You absolutely could do, but in this recipe the whole orange is blitzed up so there is a lot of zest through it. The recipe as it, has a really lovely and rounded orange flavour.

          Hope you enjoy the cake!

  10. Self rising flour is not generally available here in Switzerland and the cake must be done with spelt (wheat intolerance).

    How to substitute? Normally I reduce liquid by 10 Percent and adjust spelt up by eye asgard as needed. But this recipe is outside the normal boundaries so I’d prefer some guidance. I just a routine occasional baker but a good cook, to give context.

    And although it seems no one wanted to eat the whole lemon suet cake from your season, it looked yummy to me, and is partly why I want to try this recipe. Also, living close to Italy, we get really good mascarpone here.

    Thank you, and wishing you continued siccess in all your endeavors.

    • Hi Rose,

      Thanks for your question. I would not be able to tell you how to adjust this using spelt flour as I don’t work with that. I always work with a gluten-free flour blend (this is my preferred brand: https://www.freee-foods.co.uk/product/gluten-free-self-raising-white-flour-1kg/ – Dove’s Farm Freee). I understand my preferred brand is probably not available in Switzerland but if you search for “Gluten-free flour blend” you should hopefully be able to find one easily. The good thing about using blends is that they have various starches and flours combined which helps to provide typically a more balanced texture than just using a single gluten-free flour or starch.

      If you are not using a self-raising flour, then you should add an extra 1tsp baking powder to this recipe.

      I hope this is helpful. Good luck with baking the cake!

  11. Well!! This cake is not only easy to make but is absolutely brilliant. My husband couldn’t get enough of it, so I’ll be making it again! One thing I found is that if you put a water-soaked cloth strip (I use the ones made by Wilton) around the outside of the pan, the cake comes out nice and flat, no dome on the top.

    Oh, and I used Splenda Magic Baker sugar alternative and that was just fine. Thanks, Peter, for a great recipe.

  12. Absolutely delicious, and a wonderful texture. Really easy to make and the cake itself seems like it took a lot more effort than it did. Thank you for a great, easy to follow recipe.

  13. I just finished watching the 2020 season of the show and came straight to your site. I love the idea of this cake and I will be making it for New Year’s Eve,instead of the traditional Vassilopita we make in Greece.

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