Orange Cake with Caramel Topping (Eggless)

Orange Cake with Caramel Topping (eggless)


This year somehow the holiday season has caught on to me as well. Like many, I feel like I need to bake many goodies but the rational side of me says they still have to be as healthy or as less unhealthy as possible. I had some oranges that I had to use up so thought of making an orange cake. I had made orange based muffin (which I am yet to blog about) sometime back and did fancy something orangey. I found a butterless version of orange cake here, adapted the same and wanted to jazz it up with a caramelised topping. The only thing that went wrong was with how well I clamped my springform cake tin. Apparently I had not done it well so some of my caramel dripped making the centre look like there was no caramel. The cake was great in texture and taste and all at home just loved it. It is not common for a non-chocolate cake to go down well in my family but this was a clear winner. I realised I did not have enough orange to get one cup of juice so I added some orange extract. You could avoid it if you have a cup of orange juice. Add the vinegar only at the end just before pouring into the mould.  Unlike what I did, try to avoid cutting the cake until completely cool. Had I waited long enough, the slice would have been a lot more neat. Anyway, it tasted really yummy so that is all that matters.

Caramel topping:
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoon water
2 tablespoon butter

Add sugar and water in a saucepan and heat while stirring until the sugar dissolves

Stop stirring and allow the sugar to caramelise, you know it is done when it turns amber coloured

Turn flame off, add the butter and combine by swirling the pan and not stirring

Slice oranges and arrange at the bottom of the cake tin lined with baking paper

Pour the caramel over and swirl the tin to evenly spread it

Orange cake:
1 cup all purpose flour
½ cup wholewheat flour
1/3 cup ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon soda bicarbonate
1 cup sugar
½ cup orange juice (or 1 cup orange juice and no water)
½ cup water
½ teaspoon orange extract (skip if using 1 cup orange juice)
2 teaspoon vinegar
1/3 cup sunflower oil

Sift flour, baking powder and soda bicarb together

Add ground almonds and sugar and mix well

Add all wet ingredients except the vinegar. Mix until combined. Add the vinegar and mix

Pour the batter over the orange and caramel and bake at 180degc for 30 minutes (until a tooth pick inserted come out clean)

Never keep opening the oven while the cake is baking as this will stop the cake from rising

Cool the cake in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to cooling rack and cool completely before cutting

Serve!