I have just started a low sugar low carbs diet to try and shift a little of my gut, which has been creeping up in the last few years. For this purpose, my naturopath asked me not to eat any fruit for the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I had 3 beautiful mandarins in my fruit bowl that I didn't want to waste. My immediate thought was - let's make cake with them!
I used this recipe for Mandarin Pistachio Cake, because it uses the whole mandarins. I was intrigued! It was also flourless, even better in my current circumstances. I just substituted almond meal for the pistachios, and ended up with this cake:
My notes:
- The cake is quite soft and fragile, so be careful when unmoulding it and handling it in general.
- The cake is also very moist, almost pudding-like, but this is how it is meant to be - it doesn't mean it's not cooked.
- I added a plain icing sugar glaze, and was glad I did, as the cake has a slightly bitter edge from the mandarin peel.
- Although I didn't eat a whole slice (I just tasted some stray crumbs due to my diet), I can say that it tasted better the day after baking when the flavours had melded - it made the cake less bitter.
