Grapefruit and almond cake

I took Claudia Roden’s much-loved recipe for orange and almond cake and used grapefruit instead of oranges, with huge success. The grapefruit gave the cake a very appealing bitter-sweet flavour. It made a particularly good dessert after a hefty roast dinner because I felt the goodness of the grapefruit was still getting through — and the house smelt amazing while the grapefruit were boiling.

This cake is dairy and gluten free if you use gluten-free baking powder.

Ingredients

2	Grapefruit, I used a particularly sweet variety of grapefruit with quite an orange flesh, you may get different results with grapefruit that are less sweet. (Main)
6	Eggs
250 g	Ground almonds
250 g	Sugar
1 tsp	Baking powder

Directions

1. Wash the grapefruit and simmer them, unpeeled, in water to cover for 2 hours. Cool, cut them open and remove the seeds. Puree the grapefruit in a food processor.
2. Heat the oven to 170C fan-bake.
3. Whizz the eggs into the grapefruit, then add the almonds, sugar and baking powder and whizz until everything is mixed together.
4. Pour into a greased and lined cake tin, preferably with a removable base.
5. Bake for one hour, or until a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin before turning out.
6. Serve with a dusting of icing sugar and whipped cream or yoghurt on the side.