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What a wonderful cake! My daughter couldnโt stop eating another slice. It came out just like your photo, and tastes like a fresh orange pound cake. Iโm in love! ~ Lilly

My flourless tangerine cake is made without any flour or oil ~ yet it’s fluffy, moist, and fabulous!
This is one of those times you just have to take my word for it, and give this unique flourless tangerine cake a try. The minute you spot great tangerines, put this easy recipe on your to-do list, you won’t regret it.
This gluten free cake is made with whole tangerines, peel and all!
Cakes made with whole citrus fruits have always fascinated me. The concept comes from the sunny island of Sicily, where citrus trees grow like weeds. The fruit is boiled, de-seeded, and processed into a brilliant orange puree. The puree is blended with eggs, sugar, and almond flour, poured into a tart pan, and baked into the moistest, most delicate, tangerine cake you’ve ever tasted. This is an experience not to be missed.
what you’ll need for flourless tangerine cake
- fresh juicy tangerines
- the better your fruit, the tastier your cake will be.
- eggs
- white sugar
- almond meal or almond flour
- baking powder
- Amaretto, optional
- confectioner’s sugar for dusting
I use a high speed blender to make a tangerine puree
It’s hard to believe that the boiled tangerines, above, will magically morph into such a delightfully fluffy cake with so few ingredients and such minimal effort. It blows my mind every time. I used my Vitamix, which does an amazing job blitzing the tangerines into a silky puree, but any good food processor will work.
The right pan for this recipe
I bake my flourless tangerine cake in a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom so I can lift it out for serving and cutting. (You can also use a cheesecake pan.) The cake bakes up moist and dense, but with a light, almost sponge cake texture. I know it sounds strange, but it really is light and dense at the same time.
This tangerine cake is moist enough to make ahead
The cake slices like a dream, and will stay most for several days at room temperature. If you’d like to make it a day ahead, dust with powdered sugar just before serving.
decorating the cake with a lace effect
To get the pretty lace effect lay a doily or piece of lace on top of the cooled cake and then sift powdered sugar over all. Carefully life off the lace and voila! Don’t be afraid to try, you can always cover up with a solid layer of powered sugar if necessary.
See my post on How to Decorate a Cake with Lace for detailed instructions on how to achieve this pretty and surprisingly easy look. The technique is so versatile and can be used for all kinds of special occasion desserts from the winter holidays, to Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter, etc.
Sometimes the message of a post can get drowned out by all the text and photos…so I’ll just put it here in plain black and white~
Try this, it’s sensational.
After making this cake in 2012 I went on to make a FLOURLESS WHOLE MEYER LEMON CAKE in 2013 which is wonderful, too. I’m already experimenting with pink grapefruit and blood oranges ~ I’ll keep you posted ๐
Tips for making flourless tangerine cake
- use good, sweet, seasonal tangerines…your cake will be as good as your fruit, so choose the best!
- Since you will be using the whole fruit, I recommend organic tangerines, if possible.
- Weigh the puree so that you get the proper amount in your cake. It should be 11 1/2 ounces.
- You can experiment with flavoring this cake. I added Amaretto on a whim, and you could use other spirits like Grand Marnier. You could also leave out the alcohol and use some vanilla or almond extract.
Flourless Tangerine Cake
Video
Equipment
- 9 inch spring form pan or tart pan with removeable bottom
Ingredients
- 1 pound tangerines to make 11 1/2 ounces of puree, approximately 5-6, but weigh them
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup white sugar
- 3 cups almond meal or almond flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 Tbsp Amaretto, optional
- confectioner’s sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Set oven to 350F Butter a 9 inch spring form pan
- Step one is the only time consuming part of this cake. Wash your tangerines and put them in a saucepan covered with cold water. (They’ll float, but don’t worry about that) Bring to a boil, and boil for a full 15 minutes. The boiling removes the bitterness in the citrus skin.
- Drain and let the tangerines cool for a bit. Slice them in half, and then in half again. Remove any seeds and discard, but do this on a plate so you don’t lose any juice or pulp. Put it all in a food processor and process until completely smooth. You may have to stop and scrape down the sides a few times. My finished puree weighed 11 1/2 oz, (about a cup) and I highly recommend weighing the puree and only using the 11 1/2 ounces. Too much puree will throw off the balance of ingredients in this cake.
- Set aside, or refrigerate until the next day if you want to do this ahead.
- The rest is a one bowl deal: Beat the eggs and sugar until light and creamy. Fold in the almond meal, orange pulp, baking powder, and Amaretto, if using. Mix until well combined.
- Pour into your prepared tart pan and smooth out evenly.
- Bake for 50-60 minutes, until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If the cake is browning too fast, cover loosely with a sheet of foil.
- Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan to finish cooling.
- Dust with confectioner’s sugar. Decorate with some citrus zest if you like.
This recipe was a hit on Tday brunch with GF and nonGF diets alike. Loved it so much Iโm taking it to two different Christmas gatherings! So simple yet dense and moist. Thank you!! One request, the ads are cumbersome on your site, can you do something about that? I know you need the $$ but makes it hard to use and view other recipes from you.
So glad you enjoyed the cake Hannah, and I’m always eager to hear feedback on the ads, I know they can be annoying.
Hi Sue – the new ‘look’ is very clean…..I miss the option for changing the recipe to ‘grams / metric’, will you have that again for your recipes???
Thanks!
Thanks Zoritsa! I do have that feature on new recipes, but I have to convert all of my older recipes by hand, I’ll get this one converted for you today.
Hello,
Has anyone tried using almond extract instead of amaretto and if so, how much?
Thank you!
Almond extract would be great, and I’d use a teaspoon.
I made this for my niece, who is ‘vegan’ and my sister who has celiac’s…..my variances from your recipe is that I used Coconut Sugar and JU.ST Egg Substitute. Everything looked perfect and seemed to bake well, however it turned out very dense & moist – not able to really slice it.
The taste is still phenomenal so am going to make it again, this time with regular cane sugar & real eggs…..curious if when you whip the eggs & sugar ‘until light and creamy’ that my substitutions did not allow for that texture / airiness (???).
Anyway – thank you, as always, for fabulous recipe ideas….I WILL conquer this recipe and make it look as fabulous as yours ;D
Take care & happy baking!
OK, so for this dummy, you purรฉe the tangerine peel along with the insides minus any seeds and tough stuff?
Not a dumb question because this is an unusual recipe! And yes, the whole tangerine, peel and all, minus the bitter seeds.
Just made this cake for the second time, and again, it came out perfectly. I’ve never liked a cake I made as much as I like this one. When you have a crumb this rich and a flavor so vibrant, icing is an unnecessary indulgence and almost a distraction. A slice of this cake and a large espresso and I am in heaven. Also, the cake freezes very well. It’s simply divine!
Thanks for the glowing review!
We just moved to a house with a tangerine tree! Perfect recipe. Pretty moist and dense and full of tangerine flavor. You really must like tangerines, which we do. It’s quite rich from that flavor and really a slice is all you need to feel satisfied. I froze extra slices a couple of weeks ago and we had them today and they held up really well in the freezer in a glass container.
Have anyone made this with an egg replacer? Looking for an alternative due to allergies.
I made this and your harvest wild rice salad to bring to Thanksgiving dinner at our friendsโ home. They were both a huge success and everyone there wanted the recipes for both. Many thanks for the delicious recipes!
Thanks so much Kate <3
I must admit, I wasn’t at all sure about this recipe, but since it’s the kind of cake I love, I decided to give it a try. It is unbelievably good! I followed the recipe exactly and it came out perfectly–so moist, and the tangerine flavor is really intense and delicious. I got lucky, buying tangerines–I got the stem-and-leaves tangerines and found…NO SEEDS! I used about two-thirds of the very thin peel, and it was perfect. Thank you, Sue, for another winner!