Clementine Cake

In early November, we were blessed to get together with another family who will be traveling the adoption road. They are not only a beautiful family with a special testament to finding strength in Christ through difficult times, they are also talented musicians and another family we consider special to us. Our children all hit it off instantly and we visited until almost early the next day! (We were all thankful for the time change that night).

Anyways, C made a delicious clementine cake. I, on the other hand bought a dessert from the grocery store. It was good too, but there is just something about homemade that makes it much more special. I've been wanting to make a clemmy (as the kids call them) cake ever since. So, some scary clemmys were sitting on the counter and I decided it was a good time to make a cake with them (After all, clementine season will be gone before we know it). I googled clementine cake recipes and only found one recipe and a bazillion (okay, I'm exaggerating) links to that same recipe. It called for -- yikes!! -- one and 3/4 cups of ground almonds. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure C didn't use ground almonds either. One great thing though, if you have a gluten allergy, it is your cake!

I digress. In the end I made a clementine cake with the clemmys and the help of a cake mix. I fed the first piece to the fellow running the excavator on our addition project. Nothing drastic happened to him, so we had it for dessert. It was good. I think next time I'll use a little less of the peel and remember to get out all the seeds.

Just in case you're curious to try this yourself, here is what I did:

I used one plain cake mix...
and five clementines. Take the clementines and toss them in a pot of water filled to just over half their height. Bring to a boil and let simmer until clemmys are soft and some of the water has boiled off. Cool. Then remove seeds and run the the clemmys peel and all through a food processor. Follow baking instructions on cake mix substituting your clemmy mush for water. If you find the cake mix still looks really thick, add some water. I ended up adding 1/3 cup. Bake following instructions on box. Make a glaze of your choice. I used icing sugar, orange extract, and milk. Then feed to the local construction guy and if he's okay, feed it to your family for dessert ;o).