Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Flourless orange cake for Boris


Our credit officer, Boris, celebrated his birthday on Sunday. I asked Boris whether he preferred his cake on the Friday before or the Monday after the big day. Luckily for me, he nominated the Monday after, which gave me some extra time to make it.

Boris is very fitness conscious, so I asked him what type of cake he would like me to make for him. After all, I wouldn't be doing him any favours if I made him a Black Forest Cake, resplendent with lashings of cream, chocolate and liqueur. Boris's preference (in lieu of the chocolate tofu and date cake that I have now made twice before and refuse to make again) was for a flourless orange cake. Brilliant! All I had to do was to find a good recipe, as the flourless cakes that I have tried in cafes tend to be dry and tasteless affairs.

Luck was on my side, as the recipe that I selected from a brief Google search, and which can be found here at Gluten Free South Africa, was really good. It is moist and definitely orange-flavoured, and bakes with a firm outer crumb and a delightful soft, golden interior. This is a lovely cake.



I iced this cake with orange glace icing (just icing sugar mixed with enough orange juice to make it comfortably spreadable over the cake), piped Boris's name on it using the red writing gel that I had left over from my conversation cupcakes, and decorated it with orange flavoured Starburst Fruitfuls. I think the overall effect was rather cute.

This is one of my favourite cakes so far, as it is moist, citrusey (is this a word??) and light. It also eliminated my prejudice against flourless cakes, as it proved that they do not have to taste like sawdust.

Happy birthday Boris!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"citrusey" is a great word. And Happy Birthday to Boris :)

Gretchen Noelle said...

What a nice gesture to bake for everyone's birthdays! Hey, I tagged you for a meme!

Ivy said...

The cake looks wonderful although I have never tried tofu before but I can imagine it with flour and I like your glaze. Happy Birthday to your friend.

Anonymous said...

Wow! I'm inspired to try this one. It would be quite an interesting challenge with all those eggs!

Emily said...

Happy Birthday to Boris! Don't you love the name Boris? It's so cool.
That looks like a fabulous flourless orange cake.

Cakelaw said...

Thanks Maryann - I am going to add it to my dictionary.

Hi Gretchen - thanks! Will get onto the meme as soon as I can.

Thanks Ivy. The glaze is nice if like an intense orange flavour.

Hi Gail, I agree that there are a lot of eggs - but I just sucked in my breath and figured that it's for a birthday so it should be special.

Thanks Emiline - Boris is rather a cool name. Scarily, my dentist is also called Boris!

Peter M said...

The only Boris' I know are slavic around here.

Bringing treats, cakes, etc to the office are always appreciated, a nice personal touch.

Cakelaw said...

Hi Peter, I'd say that both Boris at work and Boris the dentist are from Slavic backgrounds - their surnames are a giveaway!

Susan @ SGCC said...

That Boris is a lucky guy. The cake looks lovely! I have several gluten-free people in my life and this cake would make them very happy.

My meme post is finally up. Doing four at once took quite a lot of time, but it was fun. Thanks again for tagging me. :)

I'm hoping to have my award post up sometime today too.

Rosie said...

Happy Birthday to Boris!

I've never tried tofu in a cake before very interesting. A fabulous flourless orange cake you have here!

Rosie x

Cakelaw said...

Hi Susan, I think so too ;) Thanks for doing the meme - I can't wait to check out your answers.

Hi Rosie, thanks. It really is citrusey - and good!