Oranges and Almonds bring back memories

As a baker, ingredients have of course, always been a source of interest to me and here in Spain there are a great many local ingredients readily available in abundance that back in the UK always had to be imported. This of course meant large variations of price throughout the year.

Spain is the second largest producer of Almonds, California being the first and as for the Oranges, the streets around me are lined with Seville Orange Trees and a little later in the year they will be in season and start shed their beautiful ripe golden fruits onto the pavements, all I have to do is collect what I need, pop into the shop for some sugar and head home to make my year’s supply of delicious Seville Orange Marmalade – perfect and cheap too. Unfortunately, I have lost two of my orange trees and one grapefruit tree this year even with regular watering, but still have lemon, plum and fig trees in the garden.

Although there are plenty of Almonds in the shops, all I have to do is go as far as the garage and collect what I require from my very own harvest from my 75 almond trees surrounding the house. These are harvested in September and will last me all year round.

I mentioned at the top of this post that Oranges and Almonds bring back memories for me, they remind me of my baking days back in the UK, situated in Leeds, West Yorkshire the shop was of course right in the middle of one of the largest Jewish communities in the country, and this meant adapting our products to suit the local needs.  Now, although there was a host of Jewish bakeries around, because we made an effort to produce special cakes for the many Jewish feasts and festivals (not as many festivals as here in Spain, but quite a lot nevertheless) we soon built up quite a reputation and we were rewarded with many new Jewish customers who over the years became friends too.

One of our cakes preferred for a Passover dessert was the much loved ‘Orange & Almond’ cake, it’s so light, moist and tastes wonderful, it also has the added benefit of being Gluten Free as it contains no flour. As far as cake baking goes, this could not be easier.

See my recipe HERE.

Category: Blog