Clementine Cake

Source: NYT Cooking

Ingredients

• 5 medium clementines (about 375 grams)
• Spray cooking oil
• 6  large eggs
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 cup sugar (198 grams)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups blanched almond flour or very finely ground blanched almonds
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
•  Powdered sugar, chocolate glaze or candied clementines, for garnish

Directions

1. Place whole unpeeled clementines in a steamer basket in a pressure cooker like an instant pot, cover with 1 cup cold water and pressure cook on high for 11 minutes. Manual release pressure, being careful not to burn yourself. Remove clementines with a slotted spoon and, once cool enough to handle, halve and remove any seeds or other hard bits. Purée in a food processor or blender and set aside. (May be done up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated.)
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9-inch cake pan with cooking oil, line bottom with parchment paper and spray paper with oil.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs together with the sugar, salt, almond extract and clementine purée. Add the almond flour and baking powder and stir until just combined.
4. Pour into prepared pan and bake until edges are golden brown and starting to pull away from sides of pan, about 1 hour. Transfer to wire rack set over baking sheet. After 10 minutes, run a knife around edge of pan to loosen cake; remove cake from pan. Peel off parchment paper and return cake to wire rack to cool completely. Decorate with dusting of powdered sugar, or with chocolate glaze and/or candied clementines.

Note

We had a ton of kishu mandarins so I zested and peeled (& discarded the peels) a few then blended raw with the cooked mandarins. It comes out moist with some orangey flavor and a tiny bit bitter. I only peeled 2 mandarins out of like 10, so next time I'd peel ~1/3 of them. I used no topping and it was fine.