Eggs and Flour in Clementine Cake

Asked by Geraldine Bates. Answered on 6th February 2015

Full question

Can I reduce the amount of eggs used in the Clementine Cake? I have a slight allergy to eggs and although I eat them 6 may be too many. Thank you.

The Clementine Cake receipe needs grounded almonds. Is there anything else I can use other than that to make the cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Clementine Cake (from How To Eat and on the Nigella website) is made from cooked and pureed clementines, ground almonds, eggs and sugar. Unfortunately we would not recommend reducing the amount of eggs in the recipe or substituting flour for the nuts. It may be possible to use ground hazelnuts but they have a stronger flavour than almonds so will affect the flavour of the cake.

The cake does not contain any fat from butter or oil, the fat in the cake is derived solely from the ground almonnds and the fat in the eggs; reducing the eggs could leave the cake on the dry side. Using flour instead of ground nuts would make the cake very dry and unpalatable. Also as the cake is gluten free the eggs partly acts as a "glue", binding the cake ingredients together; reducing the eggs could make the cake very crumbly. You may instead like to try Nigella's Lemon Polenta Cake (from Kitchen and on the Nigella website). This is gluten free but only uses 3 eggs. The cake is kept moist by the addition of a citrus syrup that is poured over after cooking. You could try substituting the lemons with 3 to 4 clementines instead.