Sicilian Orange Ciambellone – Pan d’arancio

A few days ago we announced that we would prepare a cake with Sicilian oranges. As we like to keep our promises :-), today we will present you this fragrant cake, the Pan d’arancio.

To prepare this traditional Sicilian cake we used Sanguinello blood oranges (a type of blood oranges), which come from Eastern Sicily. This variety has a pulp lightly streaked with red due to the presence of anthocyanins. The flavour is more intense and sweeter than other varieties of oranges.

RECIPE:

Sicilian Orange Cake

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INGREDIENTS

• 3 eggs
• 100 g (1/2 + 1/3 cup) all – purpose flour
• 200 g  (2 cups) almond flower
• 1 orange
• 100 ml (1/3 cup + 4 teaspoon) vegetable oil
• 300 g (1 1/2 cup ) caster sugar
• 1 packet baking powder (about 16g , 3tsp)

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INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat oven to 180°C.
• In a food processor, process the entire orange until it is pureed (see the picture below).

• Place the sugar and yolks in a large bowl and beat with a mixer until light and fluffy.
• Sift the flour with the baking powder and then add to the egg mixture a little at a time along with the powdered almonds. Continue mixing until well combined. Stir in it the orange puree until completely blended.
• Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. Then fold gently the beaten egg whites into the batter. When well mixed, drizzle the vegetable oil, mixing thoroughly.
• Grease and flour a cake tin and then pour the batter into it.  Bake the cake for about 40 minutes. If you want to make sure your cake is done, insert a toothpick into the center of the cake. If the toothpick comes out clean, without streaks of batter, then you can take the cake out of the oven.
• Allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then remove the cake from the cake tin. Dust with icing sugar and serve with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.