A delightful Moroccan Orange & Cardamom cake.

I miss my home in Morocco, but I am happy that my family are making a new life in the US, I love to learn English with my teachers and my friends and I wish that one day I can make them all my cake in person.  For me when I think of Morocco, I think of the times that our family get together to celebrate a birthday or a special event.  When this happens, the air fills with the sweetest smells, and I always think of the smell of oranges as the smell of family happiness. So it is my honor to introduce you to my favorite recipe from home, my Moroccan Orange and Cardamom cake, I think you will taste the happiness too.

Ingredients:

2 big oranges

Crushed seeds from pods of 6 green cardamom

1 tablespoon of flaky almonds

25 grams of self-raising flour

6 large eggs

200 g of chopped or ground almonds

50g of polenta

2 teaspoons of baking powder

225 grams of stevia 

Cream and orange rind to decorate and serve.

Place the oranges into water and cover them. Then you must boil them for about one hour until they can easily be pricked with a fork. After this time you must remove them from the water and let them cool, then cut them up and remove any pips. 

Put the oranges into a blender until you have a kind of purée, and then pour into a bowl and set aside.

Heat your oven to about 320 F, and line a cake tin with parchment paper.  I like to use a round tin, because my mother told me that round cakes had no corners, so no one could have the first or last.. I like that. 

Now you must put the crush cardamom, stevia and eggs into the orange purée and mix them together.  

In another bowl, you must mix the flour, baking powder and the polenta, folding them together until they are mixed, add the ground almonds, and mix all of it into the orange and put into the cake tin. 

The cake will need to be in the oven first for 35-40 minutes, and at this point, please open the oven and quickly add the ground almonds.  Close the door and bake for about 20 minutes more or until you can put a knife into the cake and bring it out with no batter.

Once the cake is cool, you should add cream to serve and grate some orange peel over the cake.  Then you will have a beautiful taste of Morocco that will give you much happiness, just like in my family.