The mandarin cake is a simple and delicious citrus dessert, super soft and rich in fresh fruit. In the countryside, we are harvesting a lot of mandarins, the trees are full of fruit, so, to use some up, I thought of preparing a nice soft and fragrant cake for breakfast and snack. How wonderful! The upside-down mandarin cake is prepared in just a few minutes and without butter, with fruit juice and whole mandarins that, after baking, form a beautiful pattern on the surface of the cake, as if they were many little flowers!
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 8-inch pan
- Cooking methods: Oven, Electric Oven, Air Frying
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, and Spring
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup mandarin juice
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 5 mandarins (for decoration)
- 3 eggs
- 1 mandarin zest (grated)
- 1 packet baking powder
- to taste vanilla
- to taste powdered sugar
Steps
The mandarin cake is very simple and quick to prepare, for which you clean and cut the mandarins in half, remove the seeds and peel from some (I used 4 and a half for decoration, your choice), without separating the segments, and squeeze the others.
Beat the eggs with the sugar until they become light and fluffy. Add the vegetable oil and mix. Add the grated zest and mandarin juice, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and thoroughly combine all the ingredients.
Line a baking pan with parchment paper and arrange the halved mandarins on the base, cut side down.
Pour the batter over the citrus and bake the upside-down mandarin cake in a preheated oven at 350°F for about 40 minutes, perform the toothpick test to check for doneness.
Remove the mandarin cake from the oven, invert it onto a rack, remove the parchment paper, and garnish with a dusting of powdered sugar.
Tips:
The mandarin cake keeps at room temperature for 3/4 days. If you prefer, you can use 1/2 cup of melted butter instead of oil. If you don’t want to use whole mandarins, make the simpler version, just with the juice.
Other mandarin dessert recipes HERE
