Darling Clementine [Verse 2]

Last year I posted about Nigella’s Clementine cake, which I had made with half a dozen dried out clementines which a friend had given me [she had intended to throw them out but I asked for them] You can read the post here. To my shame I had allowed some fruit to get past their best myself recently, and thought perhaps I could use N’s recipe rather than bin them. However, when it came to it, I discovered I did not have any ground almonds [key ingredient] and furthermore, I had forgotten that the recipe required two hours of boiling. Expensive in terms of ingredients and energy. I decided to create my own version – but more cheaply and more quickly…

Nigella used a 21cm tin – but I made my mixture in two 15cm tins.

I substituted semolina for ground almonds, and added 2 tsp almond essence. I also halved all the other ingredients [apart from the fruit]

I was able to cut the cakes into 6 portions [and freeze most of them] and these worked out at 18p a portion. the original recipe worked out at 48p a portion [and served 10] But the taste was still great.

More importantly, I cut the preparation time from 3 hours to 1 hour, by cooking the fruit in my pressure cooker rather than boiling it.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 clementines
• 3 eggs
• 120g sugar
• 125g semolina
• 2 level tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp almond essence

METHOD

1. Put the fruit in the base of a pressure cooker, cover with boiling water. Bring to pressure, cook for twenty minutes.
2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 190˚ C. Line two 15cm baking tins [or one 21cm tin]
3. Combine all the other ingredients [I used my food mixer – my processor has broken]
4. When the 20mins are up, reduce the pressure quickly, put the fruit in a sieve and run under cold water till cool. Cut in half, remove any pips [and also the little green stalk]
5. Put the fruit into a processor [or liquidiser goblet] and reduce to puree. Combine with the other mixture, and mix well.
6. Pour into tins [or tin] and bake for 35 minutes until golden brown on top. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

It is a very dense, rich cake – and goes well served warm with natural yogurt or custard.

My other half is not keen on citrus fruits. He says it is ‘too orangey’ for him. Which reminded me of this ad…

“Kia Ora” is Maori for “Be Healthy”