If I had to see this recipe in a book, I would have overlooked it and turned the page. I am not a huge orange fan. The only orange related food we have in the house is a random bottle of Orange juice, that I sometimes crave for breakfast.

But you will never find a whole orange in the house.

Unless of course, it’s a prayer service and you have to have 3 different kinds of fruit. Apple, orange and banana.

Normally the orange just dies in the fruit basket and then gets thrown out, but I came across this recipe on The Korean Vegans Instagram page and I really really wanted to try it out. I made sure that the day before we had chickpeas for lunch, so that I could save the aquafaba for this recipe. Talk about planning ahead.

The recipe itself is super easy and super fun to make, not chopping or peeling, just quarter and pop into the food processor to do the hard work. How fun is that.

The only problem I seemed to have encountered was trying to get the cake out of the pan. I greased and floured the pan, before pouring the batter in and the cake still got stuck, nothing like scraping out the stuck part and sticking it back onto the cake, couldn’t fix. After all, it is going to get mushed up in your stomach anyway, So I am just speeding along the digestion process.

I knew my parents would not be huge fans of this cake, my mother dislikes citrus and my dad doesn’t like bitter cakes and he is more of a naartjie fan than an orange. I was however presently surprised actually more shocked that both parents loved this cake. My mother had 2 helpings, which is so unlike her.

My verdict, it was a delicious cake, soft and moist, but every time I chewed, I could picture the membranes of the orange and it just made me feel sick. I can’t help it, my mind goes strange places when I eat.

All in all, it got the parents approval and they did say that if I made it again, they would eat it over and over again and then my dad had to have the last say and spoil the moment. As usual his reply to me asking would they eat it again, he said, “Yes, but he knows that he will only get this cake again next year.” Talk about a party pooper, can I help it, if I plan a menu, making sure we try different things and not eating the same dish in a year??? Can’t please an Indian man I tell you.

Ingredients:

• 1 x orange
• 1 ¾ x cup cake flour, sifted.
• 1 x tbsp. baking powder.
• ½ x tsp bicarbonate of soda.
• Pinch of salt.
• 1/3 x cup butter, room temperature.
• 1 and 1/8 x cup light brown sugar.
• 9 x tbsp. aqua faba
• 1 x tsp almond essence.
• 1/3 x cup sour cream.

Method:

• Cut up the orange into quarters, leave the skin on and place in a food processor.
• Blitz till a nice pulp is formed and there are not whole bits of orange visible.
• In a stand mixer, cream together the sugar and butter, till light and fluffy.
• Mix in the aqua faba and almond essence.
• Add in the sour cream and mix till well combined.
• Add the blitzed orange and mix.
• Sift in the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
• Beat well till everything is well combined and there are not visible flour lumps.
• Pour into a greased bundt cake tin.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean.
• Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the cake tin before turning out onto a cooling rack and drizzling over the orange syrup before allowing to cool completely.
• To make the orange syrup: boil together the juice of 1 orange and 1/3 x cup castor sugar till it has reduced and thickened.