Clementine Cake!

Ground control to Major Tom! Major Tom, you gotta try this cake! 

    If you want to watch a good movie then watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This movie made it to my Top Ten Favorite Movies list. I have seen this movie four times and each time I get the same feeling of goodness, of trying new things, and of being inspired. Because of this movie I was inspired to make Clementine Cake. More than once this cake is brought up in the movie and to be honest it looked pretty good. If you can try an Upside-Down Pineapple Cake then why not a Rightside-Up Clementine Cake...?

     

     This recipe is easy, but also time consuming. The best part, though, is that a lot of the steps just involve putting ingredients in pots and letting them simmer for awhile, so you can do other jobs while you wait. 

     

(Before glazed and topped with candied clementines)

                             

                                  

     

     The first thing to get started is the clementines for the cake. This is the part that takes the longest. The second thing will be to start the candied clementines. They need to cook for awhile and cool. 

 (Glazed and topped with Clementines)

                                                 

Let's get cooking! 

Clementine Cake

Ingredients:

3 to 5 clementines
6 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/3 cups ground almonds
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

1. Put the clementines in a pot with cold water to cover, bring to the boil, and cook for 2 hours. Drain and when cool, cut each clementine in half, and remove seeds if there are any. Then finely chop the skins, pith, and fruit (yes, the whole fruit) in the processor (or by hand, of course).

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F 

3. Butter and line an 8-inch spring-form pan with parchment paper. (I didn't use the parchment paper.) 

4. Beat the eggs. Add the sugar, almonds, and baking powder. Mix well, adding the chopped clementines. 

5. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour. After 40 minutes cover with with foil to prevent the top from burning. 

6. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan on a rack. When the cake is cold, you can take it out of the pan. 

Candied Clementines

Ingredients: 

2-3 clementines ( I used three) 
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar 
1 cup water 

Directions: 

1. Slice clementines thinly. Bring granulated sugar and water to a boil in a saucepan. Add clementine slices and let simmer until slices are soft, about 25 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack or a piece of baking paper.

Glaze: 

Ingredients

1 1\2 cups powdered sugar. ( I used a bit less. This is versatile. Depends if you like thin or thick glaze.)

Milk  

Directions:

1. This is up to you. Start by a adding just a little bit of milk and if you want it thinner just add bit more and if it gets too thin then add a bit more powdered sugar. Just do this until you reach desired consistency. 

2. Pour the icing over the cake and spread lightly with a spoon. Top with candied clementines. 

Voila! You are done. 

And as I love to say... Enjoy! 

If you haven't seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, watch it! Here's the preview, anyway.