Clementine Cake

CLEMENTINE CAKES ARE almost always tender single-layer cakes made with ground clementines. They can be upside down or right side up and are typically dusted with confectioners’ sugar or covered with a glaze (chocolate or sugar) and decorated with candied slices of their namesake fruit. It seems odd, but the pulverized clementines add just the right amount of sweet, sour, and floral citrus flavor to every bite.

I began by baking five clementine cake recipes. Each one was unique, but they all called for ground almonds as the base of the cake (a few added a bit of flour, too). The clementine flavor in the best of these cakes was surprisingly sweet, with just a hint of pleasant bitterness. But those recipes called for cooking the