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.
fran says
I finally found agave nectar in a health food store, but could someone please tell me how much ml 1 cup of agave nectar exactly is?
And does anyone know how much grams are in 1 cup of almond flour, I think it is around 100 grams per cup. It would be greatly appreciated if i could get the precise numbers ;)
Bernadette says
I would like to try this recipe with another fruit puree—passionfruit.
How much does the two pureed oranges measure out, so that I could make an equivalent substitution?
elana says
~M -Thanks for your comment and for inspiring me to post this recipe. I am looking forward to trying it with other citrus!
Pat -Your lemon version sounds delicious.
Chrissy -Hope you liked it as much as we did :-)
Veggiegirl -Thanks!
Ruth -Peel and all; thanks for pointing out that the instructions weren’t clear enough, I edited that to be more straightforward.
Sue -Peel and all :-)
Robin -I like the chocolate drizzling idea.
Laurinda -Yup, peel and all; you are welcome!
Cate -You are welcome, and no, don’t peel the oranges.
Miranda -Yes the whole thing; glad you found us here :-)
Mariella -You are welcome; thanks for your comment.
Magma -Removing/substituting even one ingredient in a recipe will change the entire recipe and you may need to make significant adjustments when doing so –as you are basically experimenting and will achieve varied (and not always good) results. In this case, I would just recommend rolling the dough in a bit more almond flour to make it drier. This is generally the trick for oily dough (no matter what type of flour you are using).
~M -Thanks.
Sarah -Thanks for your comment. Have fun baking sans the xanthum.
Hayley -That sounds delicious!
melissa -Thanks for your comment. I would first get an oven thermometer to see if your oven is baking correctly at the temperature it is set to. If it is, then I would remove the cake at 35-40 minutes and reduce the baking time, rather than turning down the heat. Also, you could try to bake it on a lower oven rack than you did the first time…Hope this helps and let me know how it goes.
Shirley -Thanks for another great comment. Enjoy the cake!
Terri I like the idea of using a mild olive oil in place of the grapeseed. Thanks for sharing your substitution tip.
Terri Kirkner says
I’ve made at least half of the recipes on this site and only use Oliovita delicate and mild olive oil for baking rather than the grapeseed oil and love it. The oil is so light and basically has no taste.
Shirley says
As soon as I saw this, I immediately thought of Nigella’s recipe which I have always pondered, but never tried. Yours looks easier. I have two oranges that I bought to make wassail for my support group’s open house tomorrow (that recipe is from Stephanie’s A Year of Crockpotting blog, http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/), but I am very tempted to make this recipe this evening and buy more oranges tomorrow morning. ;-) Not sure if I have enough almond flour though. :-( Ordering that is on my “to do” list. If not, I will make this VERY soon. Thanks!
melissa says
the flavor of this cake is great. but the outside burned a bit t 375 for 45 minutes. to prevent this, would i turn the oven down and bake longer? thank you.
Hayley says
This cake looks so moist, perhaps some fresh cranberries and toasted walnuts? A drizzle of icing would be perfection.
Sarah Schatz - GF/CF menu planner for people with food allergies says
Wow Elana,
This sounds simply yummy. I love that you used almond flour and it intrigues me that it doens’t need other GF flour combinations to make it work. so simple! Plus, no xanthan gum. wow. This is such a healthy and yummy looking cake for the holiday season. thank you so much. You have sold me on almond and coconut flours – gonna order some soon.
thanks,
sarah
~M says
When I make this recipe, I food process the entire citrus (skin, pith, inside) minus the seeds/pips.
Magma says
Hello,
I was excited to find your beautiful website which is very similar to the way I need to eat (minus so much sugar). I made your fig newton recipe, without the sencond sweetener, and was dismayed to find how oily the cookie “dough” was. Have you tried it with less oil? I did use your recommended brand of almond flour.
Magma
Mariella says
Sheer bliss! We all adore oranges or anything citrus-related. This recipe many times simplified reminds me of Sicilian almond cake sans marzipan.
Mmmm, I’m trying it this weekend….Thank you so much for sharing.
Mariella
P.S. Love your photography!