It’s been a while since our last sweet recipe, but I can promise you there is nothing better than this orange and almond cake with dark chocolate ganache to jump back on that horse. I famously have a massive sweet tooth, and the idea of not having something sweet waiting for me for breakfast is enough to make me cry. Not one day goes by without something worth of breakfast, and although my go-to is granola, I’m not gonna say no to a slice of cake, especially not one topped with a dark chocolate ganache.

To make this gluten free: I did not make this gluten-free simply because I did not need to, but you can easily turn this into a gluten-free cake by using extra ground almonds instead of plain flour. You might need to add more, but start by substituting with a 1:1 ratio and add more if the batter looks too wet.

Scroll after the recipe to learn more about bain-marie as a technique to melt chocolate and why it’s definitely better and it’s going to make you feel like a pastry chef.

Dairy-Free Orange & Almond Cake with Chocolate Ganache

Easy to make, light, and very tasty cake that is going to very well with a cuppa on a Sunday afternoon.

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Cooling Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 50 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine European

Servings 8 people

Equipment

• Whisk

Ingredients

  

For the Cake

• 100 g ground almonds (or 150g if you're making this gluten free)
• 100 g caster sugar
• 50 g cornflour
• 50 g plain flour
• 2 eggs (yolk and whites separated)
• 7 g baking powder
• 2 oranges (juice and zest)

For the Ganache

• 100 g dark chocolate (or orange dark chocolate)
• 2 tbsp water
• 15 almonds (crushed)

Instructions

 

For the Cake

• Start by preheating the oven at 180°C/355°F fan and by preparing your tin (round 20cm/8inches).
• Zest your oranges and set aside.
• Separate your egg whites from your yolks. Beat the yolks with the sugar until completely absorbed and proceed to add the juice and zest of your oranges, ground almonds, the plain flour (if using), cornflour and baking powder.
• Whisk the whites until they form stiff peaks with a pinch of salt. Add to the almond mix, folding it in, delicately.
• Put in the oven for 30 minutes.

For the Ganache

• While your cake cooks, melt your chocolate in a baine marie to avoid burning it (read after recipe notes for instructions). Add a tablespoon of water at the time until melted and smooth. Add more water as needed to reduce the sharpness if you prefer.

Assembling

• When the cake is ready (check with a skewer, if it comes out clean), let it cool for 1 hour. Once the cooling time is over, add the chocolate ganache on top and the crushed almondsto decorate.

Keyword Dairy Free Cake, Low Carb Cakes

Orange, Almonds, and Chocolate: The Perfect Triad

If I could pick one cake to eat for the rest of my life, it might not be this one exactly but it will likely include these three ingredients. There is something about the orange and chocolate pairing that I honestly cannot resist, and I think it’s possibly the best pairing ever existed. On the other hand, almonds are one of my favourite ingredients to use: they are tasty, healthy, versatile, what’s not to love?

If these amazing ingredients are not a good enough reason to convince you to try this orange and almond cake out, I’ll also say this: when it comes to cakes, this is as healthy as it gets. Fine, fine, the sugar might not be ideal, but flour is at a minimum, there is no butter and no oil to substitute it (the oil is released by the almonds), dark chocolate is not that bad, oranges are 1 of your 5 a day (I’m really stretching it here)… It could be worse.

Bain-Marie (or water bath): the mysterious French cooking method

If it involves baking and has a French name, we can be sure that it’s probably the best method. Melting chocolate the bain-marie way was probably one of my first encounters with cooking, and very likely the first with baking. I used to make lots and lots of brownies when I was in high school (still one of my favorite sweets ever, of which I tried a ‘healthier’ version with beets last year), and bain-marie was crucial in the process.

The theory behind it is that you use indirect cooking to melt and cook your ingredients. This is a way less aggressive method and it allows you to have more control over what you’re doing. In the case of chocolate, melting it directly in a small pan would be a recipe for disaster, as it would very likely burn before melting completely and we do not want that. The water bath allows you to melt it more gently, and it also prevents splitting and emulsion as Wikipedia kindly taught me.

Do you need a bain-marie pot for this?

Unless you’re planning to open a bakery, no, you most definitely don’t. For the purposes of this orange and almond cake and its dark chocolate ganache, bowls and pots are going to be more than enough.

To make the dark chocolate ganache: just use a glass bowl or a ceramic bowl and place it over a pot half full of water, making sure that the bowl is not going to fall in. The water in the pot must touch the bowl you’re using to make it hot and melt the chocolate inside, so add more if you need. Cook over very low heat, as the water will start to boil and might come out of the pot. It’s going to take 10 to 15 minutes probably, but your almond cake is in the oven anyway so it’s not like you have anywhere to go, have you?