Even though the holidays are over, I am still enjoying baking sweets and healthy treats. In fact, with citrus being in season and citrus and desserts going so well together, I am inspired to come up with seasonal recipes using some of my favorites ~ lemon, cara cara navels, blood oranges and grapefruit.
I mean, what am I even doing with my life if I am not dreaming up delish healthy desserts to share?
Take this zest-y Citrus Almond Cake, made with almond flour, coconut sugar, fresh orange and lemon zest, then topped with toasted sliced almonds and dusted with organic powdered sugar. It happens to be free of gluten, bleached flours, dairy and oil, but is packed with flavor thanks to the fresh lemon and orange zest, and lemon juice.
Citrus (an acid) is a great way to bring out the flavors of food, both in sweet and savory applications. Without getting too scientific about it, let’s just leave it at this: Adding an acid such as fresh citrus leads to increased salivation, similar to the way salt does. Which means your food will literally be more mouth-watering when you add an acid like fresh lemon juice.
The zest is even more flavor-packed than the juice, which is great when you want to add flavor and lift flavors of food without adding extra liquid (such as in certain baking recipes). I like to use a Microplane for zesting anything.
And speaking of lifting, this cake is also lifting my early winter blues with its light and airy texture and bright flavors. So I am sharing the recipe with you in hopes it’ll lift yours, too.
Feel free to mix up the citrus ~ you can do a combo of orange and grapefruit, lemon and orange (as the recipe reads below), or you could even do lime and lemon for extra tang. Blood orange would lend a deeper hue to the cake with its beautiful purple color.
For the topping you can do crushed toasted pecans or walnuts if those are more your speed. Pistachios would even work. Just remember to toast the nuts first to bring out their flavor.
Be sure to let me know if you make this recipe. You can leave a comment below or tag me on my Instagram feed.
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- 1 cup fine almond flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp fine pink salt
- 3 large eggs whites and yolks separated
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
- 1 tsp orange zest
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon or orange juice from tested citrus
- 1/4 cup sliced almonds toasted
- 1 tsp organic powdered sugar
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
Toppings
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- heat oven to 350° and line a 8” square baking dish with parchment paper (not wax paper!)
- in a large bowl combine dry ingredients and mix well
- in a medium bowl beat egg whites with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form (or whisk by hand until very frothy, but the best method is beating with a mixer)
- in another medium size bowl cream or hand whisk egg yolks and sugar until smooth, then beat in the zests and citrus juice
- add egg yolk mixture to dry ingredients and stir well, then fold in egg whites
- pour batter into prepared dish and bake for 25-30 minutes
- cool cake on a rack then add toppings, cut into 9-12 pieces to serve
- any citrus will work well here ~ grapefruit, cara cara navels, meyer lemon, or blood orange etc.
- toast sliced almonds before topping cake by baking at 350° for 8-9 minutes
- for best results, sift powdered sugar over cake; it will melt into cake if you add while cake is still warm; or you can wait until the cake cools to add powdered sugar if a “snow dusting” look is desired
- if you do not have parchment paper to line baking dish coat dish with a very thin layer of coconut oil
Original recipe created by Jerran Boyer
www.healthnutchefs.com