This Gluten Free Orange Almond Flour Cake recipe, made with six healthy ingredients, is one of our favorite gluten free desserts.
Gluten Free Orange Almond Flour Cake
Every time I serve it people are shocked to find out my Orange Almond Flour Cake is made with whole oranges, peel, and all.
Almond Flour Recipes
Using the whole orange adds an incredible flavor dimension to this gluten free cake, as well as healthy bioflavonoids.
This is one of my nutritious almond flour recipes that you don’t want to miss out on.
Gluten Free Cake
Wondering how to make Orange Almond Flour Cake from scratch? All you need is whole oranges, almond flour, eggs, honey, salt, and baking soda. –that’s it!
People tell me it’s the best recipe for gluten free cake they’ve ever had!
Gluten Free Orange Almond Flour Cake
Ingredients
- 2 small oranges, 6.5 ounces each
- 4 large eggs
- ¾ cup honey
- 2 cups blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
- ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- Wash the oranges and boil them whole (peel and all) for 1½ hours, or until soft
- Place whole oranges (peel and all) in a food processor and blend until smooth
- Pulse in eggs, honey, almond flour, salt, and baking soda until well combined
- Pour batter into a greased 9 inch springform pan
- Bake at 375°F for 35-45 minutes, until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean
- Cool in the pan for 2 hours
- Serve
Orange Cake Recipe
This easy orange cake recipe is the perfect dessert for holidays such as:
But we love it so much we make this cake all year long! My holiday guests rave about this healthy gluten free recipe.
Orange Cake
If you’ve never had orange cake you’re in for a treat.
I first came upon an orange almond cake recipe in the 1990s in one of Claudia Roden’s cookbooks, The Book of Jewish Food.
Roden is a British cookbook author, food scholar, and cultural anthropologist. She is also one of my heroes.
According to Roden, orange almond cake is a traditional Sephardic recipe commonly served at Passover.
Gluten Free Passover Dessert Recipes
This Gluten Free Orange Almond Flour Cake is perfect for Passover because it does not contain chametz.
As an aside, all of my dessert recipes are Kosher for Passover since they are free of chametz!
Whole Orange Cake Recipe
It seems weird to make a cake with whole oranges.
However, using the orange with its peel is what makes my orange cake with almond flour moist and totally unique.
Yes, as I mentioned, use the entire orange, including the peel! Make sure your oranges are fresh and sweet so the cake is fresh and flavorful.
Make Ahead Almond Flour Cake Recipes
You can make this cake recipe ahead of time, that’s what I do when we’re entertaining.
If I’m having people over for Shabbat dinner, I make the cake Wednesday, let it cool on the counter overnight, then wrap it and store it in the fridge until Friday.
Cuisinart Food Processor
You know I love getting into the kitchen to test recipes for you and enjoy sharing my favorite kitchen tools, including this food processor.
This one is not only affordable, it gets the job done quickly and easily.
Gluten Free Dairy Free Desserts
Using a good food processor blends this cake batter to perfection, making it incredibly smooth.
Still, it’s amazing this cake is so rich and melt in your mouth delicious, given the lack of butter and flour. This is a fantastic gluten free, dairy free dessert.
Chocolate Orange Cake
I’ve always wanted to smother this orange cake in my Chocolate Dairy Free Frosting recipe.
As a kid, I loved chocolate-covered orange peel, and couldn’t get enough of that flavor combo. I haven’t tried it here yet, but I imagine it would be incredible.
Almond Flour Lemon Cake
This paleo cake recipe would be incredible with lemons, though many adjustments would need to be made since lemons are smaller than oranges, not as sweet, and far more bitter.
I tested this orange cake recipe a couple of dozen times to perfect it so I’m not sure how substitutions would work in order to create a recipe for lemon cake.
I wish I had a crystal ball, it would make the process so much easier! If you do experiment with lemons leave a comment and let us know if it works.
Gluten Free Desserts
Thankfully, you really don’t need to experiment with anything, given that I have hundreds of easy recipes for gluten free desserts here on the website and in my three cookbooks!
Gluten Free Orange Cake
But back to my orange cake recipe, which has been shared over ten thousand times on social media –it’s a real deal hit!
When I serve it, everyone loves it –those with diet restrictions as well as folks who can eat anything they want.
Almond Flour Cake
My cakes with almond flour are so popular because they’re rich, dense, and full of flavor.
Almond Flour Baking
Another benefit of almond flour baking is that it’s low carb and healthy.
I love using almond flour rather than the usual high carb wheat flour, the main ingredient in most cakes.
Gluten Free Dessert Recipes
All of the easy gluten free recipes for desserts below are also dairy free cakes.
Gluten Free Coffee Cake
My homemade Gluten Free Coffee Cake is one of my favorite comfort foods. It’s also one of my most popular recipes, with over forty thousand shares on social media.
Made with a base of almond flour, plus five other ingredients, you can throw this low carb coffee cake together in no time.
Gluten Free Carrot Cake
This lightly sweetened nut free Carrot Cake recipe from scratch will blow your mind.
This is one of my favorite cakes made without almond flour.
It’s a nut free cake everyone can enjoy. If you’re allergic to nuts, be sure to check out my Nut Free Recipes page.
Gluten Free Birthday Cake
If you’re looking for a cake that’s chocolate, this family favorite Gluten Free Birthday Cake is a clear winner.
I made this easy cake recipe often when the boys were growing up. Soon they took over and made it for my birthday!
Prefer vanilla birthday cake? Check out my fan favorite Gluten Free Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.
Both of these gluten free cakes are nut free and made with a base of coconut flour.
Healthy Cake Recipes
I hope you love these healthy cake recipes as much as we do and that you enjoy all of my gluten free recipes!
Which of these cake recipes will you bake?
This post is an oldie but goodie from the archives. I first shared this Gluten Free Orange Almond Flour Cake in November 2008.
Petra says
This cake is so tasty. I made two cakes at the same time since I was boiling oranges I added also 4 lemons in the pot, then blended them separately and baked as instructed.
Delicious
Elana says
Petra, thanks for letting me know this cake is delicious! We love it too :-)
Maureen R says
Hello Elana, this cake has become one of our favorites. But I would really like to try to make this recipe into muffins. I have seen at least one comment asking for advice on making this into cupcakes. So if anyone has tried making these into bread, or muffins or cupcakes please comment. My kids would love to have these in the morning as a muffin.
Thank you for your website. It’s been a life saver!!
Elana says
Maureen, I haven’t tried that so not sure. Thanks for letting me know this cake is one of your favorites! :-)
Marsha says
My husband is allergic to almonds. Is there a gf flour I can substitute instead of the almond flour? Thanks so much!
Elana says
Marsha, I haven’t tried that so not sure. Here’s a link to my Nut-Free Recipes page for you:
https://elanaspantry.com/nut-free-diet/
Enjoy!
Elana
Amy wasserman says
AMAZING and soooooo easy!! I used agave instead of honey. I find them to be pretty interchangeable in your recipes.
Elana says
Amy, thanks for letting me know this cake is AMAZING and sooooooo easy :-)
angela says
This cake is absolutely YUMMY!! I made a simple blueberry syrup with cream…. heavenly. Thank you Elana for making such wonderful food!!
Elana says
Angela, thanks for letting me know this cake is absolutely YUMMY!
Amanda Love says
OK, what?!!! This cake is OMG amazing! I was very skeptical that whole boiled oranges would actually make a good cake but it was so delicious!!! I served it as dessert for my Easter dinner with friends and they were swooning. So heavenly! And easy. I did a few things differently with amazing results: I pressure cooked my oranges for 15 min in the Instapot instead of boiling for 2 hours. I was low on honey so I used date syrup instead. It worked wonderfully! Since I am a vanilla fanatic, I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla beans. And I added 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract thanks to an idea by another person who left a comment. I baked at 375 but could tell it was overcooking so turned it down to 350 degrees which I will bake it at in the future as my edges did burn. I also tented it with foil after 10 minutes of baking. And lastly, after it come out of the oven and cooled a bit, I made a simple honey butter glaze and poured over the cake. I placed in fridge so it would harden up a bit before serving. Holy moly, this was pure bliss! I have already purchased lemons in the hope that a lemon cake will come out just as heavenly. Thank you, Elana. This is such an incredible recipe. Love the new and improved site. It looks fabulous. You rock, you all rock, life is amazing…especially with Paleo Orange Cake!
Elana says
Amanda, thanks for letting me know this cake is OMG amazing and that people at your Easter dinner were swooning over it!
Amanda Love says
Thanks for your response and oh yes, it was OMG amazing!
Diane says
Hi Elana, Thanks so much for sharing this recipe! I’m only just becoming more adventurous with baking gluten free. Your recipes and shares have been a wonderful encouragement. I gave this a try and could only find regular size oranges, I used one 12.3 oz and boiled it for 1.5 hrs. I did everything else per your instructions. The cake was super moist and delicious, but had a tiny bit of weeping on the very bottom with a texture a little like custard, which I love! Unfortunately, it fell in the middle and so was not much to look at. I imagine it was the ratio of saturated orange flesh to peel that gave the batter too much liquid. How might you have adjusted the ingredients if you only had the one 12.3 oz orange? I ate it with 86% chocolate pieces as I love chocolate/orange combo. I didn’t have time to improvise presentation, but next time I may drizzle the top with dk chocolate. Thanks again.
Elana says
Diane, thanks for your comment and question. I haven’t tried making this with one orange so not sure about that, however, it sounds more like an almond flour issue. Did you use one of the brands I recommend? For more on that go here:
https://elanaspantry.com/almond-flour-ingredient/
I’m so glad to hear you are enjoying this recipe!
Elana
Diane says
Hi Elana, No, I used a blanched almond flour I found at my local Whole Foods. I’ll have to try again with one of your recommended brands. Thank you for providing those.
Next I’ll be trying one of your cracker recipes.
Elana says
Diane, yes unfortunately Whole Foods doesn’t stock the almond flour that works in my recipes, so best to purchase online :-)
Petra says
Hi Diane, it could be the oven as well. I usually bake everything a bit longer in mine. So if the recipe says 40-45 min I leave it 5-10 min longer and check with wooden stick.
So far all of Elana’s recipes worked for me even though I never use recommended brands as I can’t get it over here.
Elana says
Thanks Petra!
PG says
I made a lemon version of the cake for our Seder. It was fabulous! My 2 lemons weighed about 9 ounces total. (No combination of the lemons I had on hand would weigh less but I decided to experiment.) I had to add a 1/4 cup more honey than the original recipe called for to offset the tartness. Fresh strawberry sauce, slightly sweetened with liquid stevia was the perfect complement.
Thank you Elana for the recipe and the inspiration!
Elana says
PG, thanks for letting me know this is fabulous!
Amanda Love says
I am inspired to know a lemon cake can be done. That is my next experiment! Thanks for reporting back!!
Elana says
Thanks Amanda!
Patricia Cesare MY PHONE says
Hello Elena, That sounds delicious! Perhaps could I cook the oranges in a low pressure cooker to save time?
Elana says
Patricia, I haven’t tried that so not sure :-)
Cory says
Hi,
I used my intant pot and it worked wonderful. I added some water, placed my oranges, then set it on high pressure for 15 min. I also trimmed the edges with sliced almonds and cranberries.
Thanks Elana for another wonderfully easy yet incredibly delish recipe.
Cory
Elana says
Cory, thanks for your sweet comment and for letting me know this is another wonderfully easy yet incredibly delish recipe :-)
julie says
sounds great; sadly i read that orange, pear and apple seeds contain small amounts of cyanide and ever since have been very careful to remove seeds from these fruits, especially oranges.
Elana says
Julie, thanks for your comment!
Leslie says
LOVE this cake! Made it for the first time today. The two smallest oranges I could find were both 8 oz. so I boiled them for the 1 1/2 hrs then guessed at how much to cut off each orange to aporoximate 6.5 oz. It worked! I baked it at 375° but at 35 mins it was really dark and a bit dry, so I’ll shorten bake time next time. Didn’t affect the flavor!
Thanks Elana! Your recipes are so good AND easy which is the best part!
Elana says
Leslie, thanks for letting me know you love this cake! And also for letting me know my recipes are good AND easy!