Orange, Pistachio & Almond Cake
The best Grain Free Orange & Almond Cake I have ever had! It is packed with bright orange flavour, super moist and so delicious! This cake is Paleo, Refined Sugar Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Diary Free, and Specific Carbohydrate Diet Legal.
With just 7 ingredients, this Grain Free Orange Cake is incredibly simple but packed with delicious citrus and nut flavour. So what’s the secret?
Simmering the oranges in a pot of water before pureeing and adding to the batter results in a super moist cake with a deep citrus flavour in every bite.
When pureeing the orange, you can put the entire orange into the blender which will give the cake a slight bitter taste (which I love) or alternatively using a sharp knife you can remove the peel from one or both of the oranges before blending which will result in a sweeter cake.
To really maximize the orange flavour I topped the Grain Free Orange & Almond Cake with slices of dried orange which are super simple to make in the oven. I also brush the top before serving with a sweet orange and honey glaze, which gives the cake a nice glistening sheen. You can easily skip one or both of these components and you will still have a delicious cake.
This Grain Free Orange & Almond Cake is great served with afternoon tea, or as a simple dessert topped with a scoop of ice cream.
Here are a few other dessert recipes that you might enjoy!
- Lemon Layered Cake with Strawberry Filling and Ombre Icing
- Pumpkin Mug Cake
- Carrot Cake Mug Cake
- Upside Down Banana Bread in a Skillet
- Lemon & Mixed Berry Cupcakes
If you make this recipe let me know in the comment section below, I would love to hear what you think or take a photo and tag me (@everylastbite_) on Instagram, I love seeing your photos!
Orange, Pistachio & Almond Cake
Ingredients
- 2 oranges
- 3 eggs
- 2/3 cup honey
- 1 cup ground pistachios
- 2 cups almond flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
Topping
- 1 orange*
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 2 tbsp honey
Instructions
- Rinse the oranges and place them in a pot. Cover with water and simmer on low heat for 1 hour.
- After 1 hour drain the pot and place the oranges in a blender. Blend for approximately 1 minutes until the oranges have formed a puree
- To make the ground pistachios place them in a coffee grinder or food processor and grind until there are no chunky pieces and everything has ground down to a fine powder.
- Preheat oven to 175 degrees celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Grease a loose bottom cake pan
- In a bowl combine the orange puree, eggs, honey, ground pistachios, almond flour, vanilla extract and baking soda. Pour into the greased cake pan
- Bake for 1 hour. If the top begins to brown too quickly, cover with tinfoil. The cake will be done once a cake inserted into the top comes out clean.
- While the cake is baking, in a small pot combine 1/2 cup orange juice with 2 tbsp honey and allow to reach boiling point before reducing the heat to simmer. Allow to simmer until the amount of liquid has reduced by approximately half. Remove from the heat and set aside until the cake has come out of the oven.
- Once the cake is out of the oven, brush the orange and honey mixture over the entire surface. Top with the slices of dried orange. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen before unclasping the outer ring.
Notes
Nutrition
This sounds delicious and I want to try it. I have one question for you. At the end, you have a note, but it doesn’t show as finished. “flipping half way through baking to…”
Whoops! Thanks for pointing that out Karen, all fixed! Let me know if you make the cake, would love to hear how it goes.
What size springform pan did you use for this cake?
Sorry for skipping that info in the recipe! I used an 8 inch spring form pan.
Can I use coconut flour instead of almond?
Unfortunately coconut flour absorbs liquid more then almond flour so they cannot be swapped. You could try using a different nut flour such as pistachio or cashew instead but I can’t guarantee it will work.
Hi, The cake looks amazing! Can you tell me is there any substitute for eggs? As I want to make an eggless cake.
To be honest I am not too familiar with using flax eggs in baking recipes but I think that they may work in place of eggs in this recipe. Let me know if you try it!
I actually tried it with banana and it worked really good! I love this cake.
Hi Carmen – I also have similar health problems and I’m continually looking for suitable recipes. One look at your cake recipe and I got cooking. The cake is a great hit with my grown-up kids and several friends. A keeper for sure! Thanks for the recipe; I’ll try some of your other ones too.
Hi Peter! I’m so sorry to hear about your health issues but so happy that you enjoyed the cake and that even non diet following friends and family liked it too. Let me know if you make any other recipe!
Oh my God!!! I ve done this cake yesterday.. soooooooo delicious . One of my really favourites . It s not just a tea cake .. it s a very prestigious one . The taste is soooo yum I cannot even describe . Thank u so much .
Yea!! I love receiving comments like this! I’m so happy you liked it!
Is there nutrition info for this cake? I am doing paleo with macros and I would love a break down in calories, protein, fat, etc.
I couldn’t find it on here? Thanks
Hi Brittany, I’m putting together the nutritional info now and will post it shortly.
Has anyone tried to make this ahead and freeze it?
I have two in my freezer at the moment 🙂 I normally make two of these at a time and keep one in the freezer to bring out for visitors. It freezers really well
Hi,
This looks so gorgeous would love to try it.
I am currently eating low fodmap foods as much as possible and cannot have pistachio nuts (or cashews) which are one of my favs…can you suggest something that would go well with the other flavours? I like walnuts but not sure if they would over power it? Maybe pecans or hazelnuts?
Many thanks
Thanks Rose! I think that ground hazelnuts or pecans would probably work as a substitute. Alternatively you could also just use more almond flour in place of the pistachios. Let me know how it goes!
I tried this but it did not rise at all and burnt on the bottom. Any suggestions. I followed the recipe to the t!
I’m curious to know what suggestions they would provide!! Seems like they missed this comment/review?
My apologies for the very delayed response!! Im sorry to hear it didnt turn out well, my guess would be that the batter for the cake was over mixed which caused it not to rise. With regard to the burnt bottom my first instinct is that your oven temperature is off? Maybe in future raising the rack would help.
Just a question about the oranges, before you simmer, are they peeled, or how do you prep the oranges?
No you leave the peel on the oranges, it gives the cake a slight bitter flavour but its masked by the honey.
Are the pistachios roasted and/or salted?
Hi Erika, they are not roasted or salted 🙂
Thanks, I’m thinking I should be able to find them at sprouts. I can’t wait to try it out!
Let me know how it goes!!
About how much orange purée do you wind up with? I am hoping to replace the orange with fig! I can make a fig purée with fresh reduced figs but need an approx measure of how much the orange purée was.
Ooohh I bet that would be delicious with figs! I would say approximately 2/3 cup pureed orange. Let me know how it goes!
Just made the cake. I used gluten free flour as opposed to almond flour. I think the almond flour would have given it a more delicate texture but I didn’t have any on hand and I wanted cake! I also used agave because I read honey processes in your body just like sugar. The cake is really good. Thanks for the recipe. Oh and I added cardamom to the syrup that we put on top the cake. That just kicked it up a notch. Thanks!
LOVE the idea of adding cardamom to the syrup, I bet that was delicious! So good to know that the cake works with gluten free flour, almond flour makes the cake more moist and dense.
Should this be stored in the refrigerator, or kept on the counter?
I prefer to keep it in the fridge so that the cake remains moist, this will also extend its shelf life for another day or two.
After boiling Do you purée the oranges with the peel on or do you remove the peel?
Keeping the peel on will give the cake a slightly bitter texture which I like, but you could alternatively remove the peel if you prefer it to be sweeter.
Could you by chance recommend a spring form pan? I’ve looked at a number online, but it seems many leak. Just curious what you’re using. Thank you! Super excited to try this for our Christmas dinner!
What size is your loose bottom cake pan? 20 cm, 22cm?
I use 20cm
Ok, I just made this and used the orange peel, but way too bitter, might be better without
Came out delicious!! Thank you for a fabulous recipe. I followed the exact recipe, and just added a little cardamom to the batter – worth it. My cake took about 70 minutes to cook all the way through, and I covered it with foil the last 5 mins. I skipped the syrup after baking, and instead made a simple frosting: mascarpone, mixed with a little honey, almond extract, and half of a lemon’s juice. Was lightly sweet and a big hit! I cut the cake in half, and put the frosting in between the layers, and a light layer on top, followed by dried oranges and sliced almonds. I will be making this again!!
The mascarpone icing sounds heavenly!! I absolutely love that idea! So happy that you enjoyed the cake!
I have been making this cake for years, it’s one of my favorite! Sometimes I use half the almond and add about 1/4 cup of coconut flour instead. It works fine, but it’ s better with almonds only to my opinion. I would definitely not recommend flax or chia eggs for this recipe though.
Thanks for the feedback Catherine! I am so happy to hear that you like the cake!
Epic Fail. Came out dry from the oven when I tested it at 1 hour and as it sat it became mush inside. I used two medium sized oranges and followed the directions to the T. Then I read in the comments where you said you had 2/3rd cup of pulp. those two oranges made 2 cups of pulp. the flavor is wonderful. Also this is not low carb. The honey and orange changes that. So Diabetics beware.
This does look like a good recipe however advertising as sugar free is inaccurate. Honey is sugar and becomes more processed when cooked so sugar free it isn’t. Also the benefits of honey, the natural antibiotic qualities, are killed with heat.
Thanks for the comment, please note that this recipe is labelled as refined sugar free, not sugar free meaning that honey is allowed 😃 All of the recipes on my site are for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and honey is the only sweetener allowed on the diet.
Can I substitute egg with flax meal or any other suggestion? I am a vegan and would love to try out your recipe..
Thank you!!
I haven’t tried using flax egg but I suspect that it would work well in this cake. Let me know how it turns out!
This came out great except I was a bit too impatient ..took it out right at the hour mark and it was a bit under done in the center but great recipe. I used a 1/2 tsp cardamom mixed into the honey orange juice glaze for more depth of flavor. Thank you its wonderful to find a recipe that suits my particular food allergies.
Love that you added cardamom, I bet that that really enhanced the flavour of the cake!
Very tasty, moist, and fat free! Thanks!
Made half the recipe which was enough to fill 2 5″ cake pans.
Made the dried oranges – v pretty as decoration – which took much less than the suggested times. 30 minutes plus 15 on the other side and some slices were burnt.
Would be good if there is some direction as to how much orange or puree to put in the cake. I used a rather large orange but decided not to use all of it after blending based on one of the comments…. fortunately it worked.
Thanks for the feedback Elaine! I’ll measure out the exact amount for the orange puree and update the recipe.
We just finished eating this cake and the whole family LOVED it! Doesn’t taste like a “healthy” dessert, just a delicious dessert. Very reminiscent of the “orange kiss-me” cake my aunt used to make. My husband proclaimed it the best paleo dessert I’ve ever made (I’ve made lots lol).
Thanks so much for this delightful recipe!
This was phenomenal…. It was a little bit of work but well worth it. I made it for a special occasion and then was able to freeze it sliced and whenever I wanted a piece of cake I could bring it out.
thank you !
I am now allergic to oranges and will need to figure out a substitute but again it was great.
Lovely recipe and delicious moist cake. Will be a favorite in my house for a long time, I predict.
I made two modifications – only baked it for 43 minutes and replaced the pistachios with mixture of walnuts and almond.
I can’t stop eating it! Thank you for sharing such a great GF recipe!
Thanks so for feedback Ellie! Im so happy to hear it turned out well and worked with the modifications!
Turned out to be a total flop. The author needs to be more specific on the type of oranges used. I used 2 whole Valencia oranges make a LOT of orange puree that is very bitter (these oranges have a thicker skin than cuties which is what I think the author is using). I did read the comments and use only 2/3rd cup of the puree. Baking for 1 hr was also WAY tooo long. It had a golden crust on the top (which I love) but the sides and bottom of the pan was BLACK. What a waste of expensive ingredients… 🙁
This was one of the most moist and delicious Paleo cakes I have made. I brought it to a holiday party, and so many people were surprised that it did not have flour and was so delicious. Thanks for this amazing recipe. I also really love your raspberry thumbprint cookies, keep the recipes coming!
This was amazing, I did change a few things : I used Costco brand pistachios (roasted and salted) gives an amazing taste. I also used 5 table spoons of maypole syrup with liquid stevia. I Also did not boil the oranges I just took 2 fresh oranges and cut the peel off then blended it ( it was more liquid). So I used 2 cups of almond flour like the recipe asked for but I added around 2 to 3 Table spoons of coconut flour. Then I cooked it in a 8 X 8 square glass pan with parchment paper for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F. Bonus the house smelt amazing!
Hi! Do you put the whole orange in pot to simmer or peel the orange before putting in the water?
Hello sounds amazing! Can we puree the oranges the night before?
Do you mix this by hand?
Made this exactly as per the recipe and it was delicious. Served with a dollop of double cream. Everyone loved it.
I have made this cake several times now and we all live it, sometimes I use just almond meal(when I don’t have pistachios) and it is still yummy thanks for a great cake
I did this cake yesterday, but to be honest, i did not like it. Too dry.
Can you please identify the size of the loose bottom cake pan?
I have done this several times and it is delicious and moist. I have made some changes, i have used cranberries and chopped pecans instead of pistachios. I also have done it with banana and egg replacer instead of eggs and it works great.
Hi Carmen,
Thank you very much for this delicious cake recipe with orange, almond, and especially pistachios. I really like pistachios. I’m crazy cakes with pistachios. It seems awesome. I will try your recipe as soon as possible. I’m sure I will love it. I wish you the best of luck and every success in the future.
If you plan on making the slightly sweeter cake without the orange peels, do you still simmer them with the peel on and then remove or do you just peel them right from the start?
Can you add cranberries to the mixture for the cake ?
I’m confused with this recipe! Do we blend the whole orange rind and all?
Looks delicious- I have a question on freezing the cake. Do you put the glaze on when you are going to serve it or before putting in the freezer
For the best flavour I would recommend putting the glaze on after freezing, although that being said it will still be fine if you put the glaze on before freezing
Hi. Can I use monk fruit instead of honey? I have a monk fruit blend that can be used like sugar.
My cake didn’t rise and I wondered if the baking soda measurement was correct. Also wondered why no salt in the recipe?