Birthday Orange Cake- Gluten and Dairy Free


This is a very special cake; it is quite time consuming but it is a proper celebration cake and both Gluten and Dairy Free!

The cake is made out of a very soft Italian sponge cake which we call Pan di spagna, Spanish Bread, cut into 4 layers filled with a water based Orange Cream.


The cake is then covered with Italian Meringue which is made with a boiling syrup of water and sugar that cooks the meringue in its making, making it very stable and suitable for decorating a cake, as well as safe to eat.

We then decorated the cake with caramelised orange slices and caramelised hazelnuts at the top  and ground hazelnut at the sides.

First prepare the sponge ( it can be prepared a couple of days in advance and then wrapped in cling film once completely cool).



Then prepare the orange cream; remember to stir it quite often while it is cooling to avoid the formation of lumps.



Once the cake is completely cold, slice it in 4 layers ( we use a cake slicer that makes the operation so much easier); prepare a syrup with 250g of water, 1/2 a cup of sugar and the juice of one lemon. Boil it until the sugar has dissolved and let it cool.
Moist each layer of cake with a few spoonfuls of syrup, then spread some of the orange cream. Procced until you use all the cake layers.

Prepare the Italian meringue


Spread the meringue over the cake with a flat knife, it has a lovely consistency and it is very easy to work it.

Decorate the cake according to taste. This cake does not need to be kept in the fridge, but will only last a day or two ( if there is any left!!).





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