Mandarins have just started to make their way back into the shops and markets of Spain and I fell for a special offer to buy 2kg of the things. That´s a kilo more than my husband and I could feasibly eat in a week so I have a search for things to do with them and found this recipe on Con Las Zarpas en la Masa which uses two whole mandarins with their skin on. I was a bit hesitant at first but it worked really well, with the skin giving a slight bitterness and texture to the cake. The only change I made was to use a mild olive oil rather than sunflower oil which I find gives a lovely moistness to cakes and you can kid yourself it´s good for you! I also found that I only had 50g of caster sugar so I replaced the rest with agave syrup and brown sugar which worked surprisingly well.
Ingredients:
– 175 gr of flour
– 15g/3tsp baking powder
– 2 thin-skinned mandarins
– 250 gr of sugar
– 3 eggs
– 80 ml of mild olive oil
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 170ºC.
Wash the mandarins in hot water and dry them. Cut them into quarters with the skins still on, removing any pips you encounter and chop them up in a food processor with the sugar. Tip out into a bowl, add the eggs and beat with an electric mixer. Add the oil and beat and then add the flour and baking powder and beat again.
Tip the mixture into a greased 2lb loaf tin and bake at 170ºC for 45-55 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Spain is delicious 