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What a wonderful cake! My daughter couldn’t stop eating another slice. It came out just like your photo, and tastes like a fresh orange pound cake. I’m 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 😉
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.
Can I use persimmon pulp to make this cake? If so any changes I should make?
I have made the tangerine cake so many times, it gets so enjoyable each time.
People can’t believe it’s tangerine..
Wow, great thought, I think you could, and as long as the pulp is thick, it should work, please let me know if you try, I think I might try it too if I can find persimmons.
If I wanted to cook in the smaller, individual tart pans, how long would you bake for? I’m a pretty inexperienced baker so I am assuming I would cut down the time but just not clue by how much.
I haven’t done that so I’m not sure, Kate. It will partly depend on the exact size of your pans, but I’d check them at 30 minutes, maybe. You can do a toothpick test.
I just made the tangerine cake for the second time. I had frozen the extra pulp which I used on the cake.
It was a big hit for my friend’s birthday. I also had enough pulp to make your g/f poppy seed tangerine pancakes.
I make your recipes over and over, and they are always a big hit. thank you
Wow, I love that you used the leftover pulp from the cake in another of my tangerine recipes, you go girl!
Sue
Thank You, I did tried with different flavour, apple, Apricot, it was amazing
Absolutely wonderful recipe! After reading some comments I was a bit scared not to add too much of the bitterness, and as for my taste the dough was a bit too sweet so I compensated with some lemon juice, and it turned out absolutely delicious! and it’s super simple to make. Weirdly enough, it tastes a bit like my mum’s cheesecake. Definitely will play around it again many times. Thank you!
You’re welcome Weronika, I’m so glad you loved it!
Can I use a blender instead of a food processor for this?
That should be fine if yours is strong enough K.
Whoa! Followed the recipe exactly. Tasted the batter before adding the almond flour. Extremely bitter. Added 1/2 cup more sugar. Still very bitter. Added another 1/2 cup and it was only slightly bitter. End resulted after baking is that the cake is slightly bitter when you eat it…acceptable. But the aftertaste of it is considerably more bitter. I am a person that doesn’t like sweet things very much. I’m also a citrus freak. So you’d think this would be the perfect cake for me. However, i would not make again. And I’m on the fence about serving it to some guests, which is why I made it. The tangerines I used were very sweet and I boiled them for the required 15 min. I’m a very experienced baker and always follow recipes exactly the first time I make them. If I hadn’t doubled the sugar for this recipe it would have been a throwaway. But even with that, for me, it was not a good cake. And I wanted to love it! My niece has a 30 year old tangerine tree that yields hundreds of fruits every year. We’re always looking for ways to use them up!
You might try it with only half the peel, Dinah, that might be more to your taste. I do think that tangerines vary quite a bit, I think there are a lot of different varieties, and I’m guessing that the peel flavor and bitterness must vary, too. Could be yours were unfortunately on the bitter side, peel-wise.
I did this exactly as described and it was wonderful. However, next time, I would remove the peels from half the tangerines. The peel’s bitterness was sophisticated, but too much for some.
That’s an interesting idea Cee, thanks!
Hi sue, I want to make ds cake for my sisters bday today. Can I half the recipe?? What would be the measurements then? Thanks
I haven’t tried to adjust this recipe, Tanz, and it makes a fairly small cake to begin with, so I suggest keeping it as is, to avoid frustration.
Our tangerine tree dropped like 100 beautiful tangerines this week as winds have been high all week. Normally I would bag them up and take them to the park to distribute among fellow dog-walkers, but the wind and rain have done that plan in. So this cake has been a lifesaver. Numerous variations too – since I am pathologically unable to follow even the very best of recipes more than once with luck. All delicious so far. Thanks!
Love this ‘e’! I’m in awe of your tangerine tree…I have a white grapefruit tree but it’s not nearly as useful. I’d love to hear about your variations!
I had a doggie birthday party this weekend and made your cake using honey tangerines. It was such a delicious treat (for the humans).
Can I use my left over pulp in any bread recipes I have? Please reply.
My friends are so happy when I bake any of your recipes, and so are my neighbors.
Keep up the good work.
I have to laugh because as I was reading your comment I of course thought you had made the cake for the dogs…which would be fine, I don’t judge 😉 As for the pulp, I haven’t tried to use that in recipes, but I would think that wherever you’d use mashed banana or applesauce it would work. Thanks for the kind words, Joan!