Blood Orange Magic Cake with Candied Almond Slices

It's not the simplicity of making this cake that calls for it's name but that once in the oven it magically transforms into three distinct layer; a thin crust, custard and a light top. Lightly sweet and flavored with blood oranges it's a fanciful dessert for any occaision.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 55

Total Time 3

Servings -12 servings

Calories 255kcal

Author Toni Dash

Ingredients

Ingredients for Blood Orange Magic Cake:

1 ½ cups milk , lukewarm
½ cup Half and Half , lukewarm
1 stick unsalted butter , melted and cooled (cannot be hot) (plus some unmelted butter for preparing the pan)
1 ½ cups Confectioners’ Sugar (plus some for dusting the top of the finished cake)
4 Eggs , room temperature and separated
1/8 teaspoon White Distilled Vinegar
½ cup freshly squeezed Blood Orange juice (about 4 medium oranges)
1 cup gluten free flour (I used a combo of Pamela’s and King Arthur’s all purpose GF flour blends)

ingredients for Candied Almond slices:

¼ cup granulated Sugar
½ cup sliced Almonds

Instructions

Instructions for Blood Orange Magic Cake:

To warm milk: combine milk and ½, place in microwave container and warm in 15 second increments until luke warm (took about 1 minute for me)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8x8 baking pan and set aside.
Combine room temperature egg whites and distilled white vinegar and whip eggs with a mixer on the highest speed until forming stiff peaks. Set aside (note the vinegar helps stabilize the peaks which is a key to success especially at high altitude).
In a second bowl, mix together the egg yolks and sugar until fully combined and sunny yellow! Add melted butter and blood orange juice; mix on low speed until the mixture is fully combined.
Add the flour very gradually to the batter while mixing to allow the flour to integrated with the rest of the batter.
While keeping the mixer running on low speed, trickle the milk/Half and Half mixture into the batter allowing it to incorporate with the batter. By trickling the milk it has time to mix in easily. Note: by the end the batter will be very watery and should be so.
By hand, fold in egg whites one fourth at a time, stirring to combine with the liquidy batter. There will be small lumps of egg white in the end and the batter will still be fairly liquid.
Pour into the prepared pan and place in the preheated oven for 50-55 minutes. The cake will have a browned top but may seem to have some movement when removing it from the oven which is normal.
Allow to cool on a cooling rack for 30 minutes, then cover with foil (shiny side out) and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Cut, sprinkle with candied almond slices and serve!

Instructions for Candied Almond slices:

Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat combine the sliced almonds and sugar. Stir constantly so as the sugar begins to melt it does not burn. Sugar will melt and being to caramelize; approximately 5 minutes
When sugar is has begun to melt/caramelize, remove the sugared almonds and spread them out on the prepared pan attempting to make one layer. Allow to harden, break apart and serve on Magic Cake.

Notes

*The original recipe called for three hours cooling time at room temperature. I found allowing the cake to rest until it reached room temperature (about 30 minutes) then putting it in the refrigerator for at least an hour worked just as well. The marjority of the 'total time' is for cooling and baking.

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