Happy birthday to me! with birthday cake recipe…

My friend Lynn likes to celebrate birthday eve, birthday, and birthday boxing day. So I’m trying that on for size this year.

Birthday eve day on Sunday was celebrated with a trip over to the Weta Cave for a tour of the Weta workshop. That’s where they made the props and costumes for the Lord of the Rongs movies, and a lot of other well known movies. @sift666 has done a post on that, which I'm linking to here.

That was followed by lunch at The Larder. @sift666 had a goats cheese soufflé with roasted broccoli. I had a roast pork belly and apple salad, and a couple of sautéed lambs kidneys on the side. All very yum, but no photos, sorry.

Later on I made myself a birthday cake, and I’ll share that recipe below.

The big day

Today is the actual day, but it’s a work day. So I’m on my way out to teach my arthritis exercise class. When I get back, hopefully business will be cruisy enough that we make heaps of money, but I don’t have to do lots of work, hahahaha…. But given that our first customer rang at 8.30am (!!), I’m not holding my breath.

And of course, the cents rolling in on this post will make my day a happy one. Just kidding; really it’s the birthday wishes from my Steemian friends that I look forward to. And having birthday cake for lunch.

@sift666 and I will have a quiet night in, with my favourite (salmon) for dinner.

Birthday boxing day

Tuesday, it’s dinner at an Italian restaurant with friends, then off to see show that a friend is in. A NZ written show about Gallipoli called Voices From The Front.

So now you’re probably hanging out for the cake recipe. As always, it’s gluten free, starch free, paleo, but because it’s birthday cake, it does have some sweetener in it. I’ve used coconut nectar this time, but on other occasions have used honey, or coconut sugar or a mixture.

This is a boiled orange and almond cake, with melted chocolate on top. I sometimes make it for family birthdays, as it’s got clean enough ingredients for us, but regular people like it too.

Here’s a photo of a double cake I made for a celebration for two family birthdays one year, decorated very simply with chocolate letters bought from the supermarket.

The recipe

• 2 oranges, boiled whole (skin on and all) for 1 hour
• 6 eggs
• 1 cup almond flour (or more if needed)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ to 2/3 cup coconut nectar (or your own preferred natural sweetener. If you like sweet, you might want to use a bit more.)

First thing to do is boil the oranges for an hour, to caramelise the flesh. Then carefully cut them open and use the tip of a knife to flick out any pips.

Put them into a food processor with the sweetener and beat till well pulverised.

Mix together the ground almonds and the sifted baking soda in another bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating till creamy between each one. Add a heaped tsp of the flour mix after each one, then add the remainder of the flour mix at the end. Pour into a greased and lined cake tin (spring loaded or with a removable bottom makes it simpler). Bake at 180C for about 45 minutes.

This is a very moist cake; almost like a sliceable pudding. So feel free to experiment with a little extra ground almonds, or even a tiny bit of your favourite flour. This time around, my oranges and eggs were large and my sweetener was a liquid one, so I ended up using an extra ½ cup of ground almonds.

I iced it simply again with melted dark chocolate. Sometimes I’ll add butter or cream, to make it more of a glaze, but today it was full on chocolate. Well, for half of anyway. The other half is iced in melted carob, for @sift666 who isn’t eating chocolate right now.