orange pie & a tea party

(you may click on the images to view them larger)

I was looking at some of my favorite blogs for recipes and inspiration yesterday, when I saw Orange Cake at Elanas Pantry. It was news to me, as Elana mentioned, that Starbucks has released a gluten-free orange cake. I go to my local coffee shop nine times out of ten, where they always have a good selection of gluten-free/dairy-free cakes and cookies, and when I do go to Starbucks I use the drive-though, which explains how I was out of the loop, but I digress. 

I wrote down Elana's Orange Cake ingredients, and while we were out I swung by a Whole Foods to grab them. When this Whole Foods was still a Wild Oats grocery store, I bought almond meal flour there all the time, but now... it's gone. This is the second time I've lost a gluten-free product which Wild Oats carried, that Whole Foods doesn't. The last product I actually went ahead and requested, with those little pieces of brown paper which they display near the check-out. You know, the ones they hang up on a small board, with a note written below your own that says, sorry, but no.

I was disappointed, but I didn't feel like driving to Vitamin Cottage, where I should have gone in the first place. So I went home, and decided to make up my own version of an orange cake, using my own blend of gluten-free flours. I made one last night, but it needed a little tweaking, so I made another one this morning and I am very happy with the way it came out. It turns out that mine is not really a cake at all. It's an orange pie, and it's super yummy. I'm so excited about it that I'm going to take it to a pot luck this weekend. Cheers, Kelly

Orange Pie:

Boil 2 whole oranges (peel and all) for about 80 minutes.

Add the whole cooked oranges (peel and all) to your food processor, after putting in the blade.

Cut each orange in half, inside the food processor (they will be very soft).

Puree.

Add:

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup tapioca flour

1/4 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup coconut flour, sifted

2 tbsp coconut oil

1/2 tsp spoonable stevia, or 1/4 tsp liquid stevia

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Puree.

While pureeing, drop in 4 eggs. 

Now for some reason my spring form pan drips oil onto the bottom of my oven (yes, even when it's properly assembled). So what I do is use a large piece of unbleached parchment paper, untrimmed, so that it comes right up the walls of the pan, and I pour the batter over. As you can see this creates a bit of a scalloped edge, that I think is pretty. If, however, you have a pan that doesn't leak like mine, you wont need this step =)

Bake at 350 degrees for about 34 minutes.

Let cool fully before dusting with ground xylitol (I use a mortar and pestle to grind mine).

It will take forever to cool, so if you are impatient (I am impatient, and it was driving me crazy :-)), you can skip dusting it and eat it hot.

*As always, be very careful that your pets don't eat any xylitol

Update: I should mention that the size of the fruit really changes the texture and consistency. The first two were made with large organic oranges (I think it's especially important that they are organic, since we are eating the peel). The large oranges produce a pie-like dessert (can I call it dessert if I eat it for breakfast -Ha!). The last one I made for a pot luck last weekend used two much smaller organic oranges, and it came out more like cake. They were equally good, I just thought I'd pass that on! Today I'm making it with 2 lemons for a lemon cake to take to another pot luck tomorrow -yay!