Whole Mandarin Cakes

Its not like I get time to read the junk mail or one that has a recipe in it, although all the supermarkets seem to be doing it these days. I stumbled across a recipe for a whole orange cake in one of them recently but I didn't have oranges. I had a few mandarins that needed using up so I thought I'd adapt the recipe. I swapped 4 small mandarins for the 2 oranges in the recipe.

Mandarins (or clementines as they are called in some parts of the world) are in season at the moment and are very juicy and sweet. I like the idea of using the whole mandarin over an orange because there's less pith in a mandarin.

This was the first time using my Kambrook Chop & Store I received as a gift at the Kid's Business Blogger's Brunch I went to the week before. It made mince meat, literally, of the whole mandarins in no time at all. What a great little appliance and one that I can see being used all the time.

I'm not going to say this was my most favourite cake recipe. When I saw there were 4 eggs, 1.1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup almond meal and 200gm of butter in the recipe, I shuddered a little. I very rarely use any eggs or butter in my cake recipes only because I'm stingey but I thought I'd try it. I found the cakes to be a little 'sticky'. Like a syrup cake but the syrup was already in the cake. The actual cake itself was dense, soft and moist. I'll happily try mandarins whole in a cake again. Maybe they might make their way into my old faithful recipe. Omit the cocoa and use 1 cup of the mandarin liquid in place of the 1 cup of water.

Disclaimer:  This isn't a sponsored post. I was gifted a Kambrook Chop & Store and all thoughts, opinions and photos are my own.