Last night I made Cake, I usually make it from clementines with brown sugar. I had a big box of mandarins and when I got my CSA box (mention me if you order and code 6164 for discounts!) this week there were a bunch of various types of oranges. Sooo I needed to do something with these little guys. They became cake. I knew this would be tough, mandarins are a little tangier than clementines but I love sour citrus flavor. I've made this cake before with clementines and Meyer lemons so I'm going to love it anyway.
Here's what I did this time.
2 lbs mandarins
1 1/2cups almonds
6 tbs flax meal
18 tbs filtered water
1 tbs baking powder
2 tbs real maple syrup ( the good stuff with the minerals in it)
1 tbs molasses
1/8 tsp pure stevia (taste this as you it's potent stuff)
I used about 2lbs of mandarins for this, I quite literally just took what was left from one of those boxes you buy in the store (5 lbs I think) had a little less than half left. I dumped them skins and all in a giant pot covered them with water. Bring to a boil, then cook on very low heat for two hours. I have great stock pots with thick copper bottoms so I very often just turn the oven off and let stand and hour, come back turn the heat on again for a bit and turn off, I just don't like to waste energy if I don't have to.
Basically just cook em til the skins are nice and soft. The ones I had were seed free. If you have seeds you'll have to let them cool a bit cut them in half and de-seed. Regardless of your seed situation take the little stem nubs off after you've cooked them.
While the mandarins are cooking soak your almonds in filtered water, they will expand and that's ok!
Place the mandarins in a food processor and liquefy, pour into a giant bowl
Combine the flax meal and water. This needs to stand at least 5 minutes, this is an egg substitute. I try not to add animal product where it's not needed and it's not needed in this recipe. Give your body a break from all the hormones and just substitute flax! 1 tbs flax + 3 tbs water = 1 egg now of course this isn't going to work for a meringue or omelet but you get the idea.
Now the almonds in the food processor, let them get as fine as you like. If your a smooth peanut butter person you may even want to dry the almonds out on a low heat in the oven for about 15 minutes before grinding. I'm a chunky girl myself so they are just fine as is! Mix thoroughly.
Add everything to the bowl. Taste as you go with the sweeteners. I like the earthy taste of molasses, maybe you don't. I've always used raw turbinado sugar making this before, but those are off my cleanse so big no no. In fact this is the first time during the cleanse that I've used a substitute sugar. I've used a banana, dates and figs so far but none of these other guys really, a hit of molasses on my sweet potatoes one day. This was a big experiment for sure! I think in this recipe you could toss bananas in with the mandarins/clementines and blend in the processor, I bet it would be awesome and I'll try it next time!
Pour all this into your cake pan. I used coconut oil for oiling my cake pan, it went perfectly.
cook at least 40 minutes. With these measurements it took 1hr and 20 minutes to cook all the way. Take plenty of peeks if the top is starting to burn cover and keep going. It's going to boil as it cooks, when you can insert a toothpick and have it come out clean your ready!
Enjoy hot with a fresh made glass of coconut milk :)
Since this does have sugar in it, even though it's a good kind I won't be eating this guy alone. All of my friends will be getting some, assuming they cross my path in the next few days. I'll be taking pieces to the tenders of my favorite bars, from juice to booze, and I myself will be practicing restraint and eating 1 reasonably sized piece a day til it's gone. I think that will only take a day or two!
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