Roast Orange and Pecan Cake … ROAST ORANGE! Really? Yep, this is one of those wonderful moments where I totally misunderstood something someone told me and despite realising my mistake, I went ahead and did my idea anyway, and it worked.
Stubborn old cow me, but I’m so glad I am. This recipe idea was originally born in Gascony, France. It was back in September when I organised a group of bloggers to accompany me to a Pilates Retreat hosted by my darling friend Susie and her husband James. I wrote about my experience at Pignoulet and you can read more about it via the link Pilates Retreat; my little free from adventure in the South of France but this is about cake, and not just any cake. A free from, moist, rich, superbly orangey cake.

Susie liked to leave out cake, iced water and all the things we’d need to make a cup of tea each afternoon whilst we relaxed between meals and pilates. One such cake was a recipe by the lovely Rick Stein, Susie kindly emailed me the recipe on my return to England…which I promptly lost! (rolls eyes and shakes head).
For weeks and weeks I promised myself I’d look up the recipe with a view to adapting it to be totally free from egg, dairy and gluten. I kept buying oranges for that purpose but instead Lewis and I kept eating the oranges and a few were turned into Orange & Clove Gin and my newest Bailey’s recipe; Chocolate Orange Bailey’s.
Anyway, when I finally found the recipe on the interweb it called for clementine’s that are boiled and blended whole.
‘Ahhhhhh, I seeeee, boiled clementines, yes that would make sense’!
You see all this time in my mind the recipe had called for oranges that were roasted in the oven. Yes that’s right, I imagined roasting an orange. The thing is that I’d thought so much about it that I simply couldn’t get the idea out of my head. So I did just that, covered an orange in olive oil and shoved it whole into the oven to roast for 40 minutes. I half expected it to explode but I was sure that this process would only improve and intensify the flavours. Guess what, I was right.

The original recipe called for almonds, which I agree do go ever so well with orange but there were two issues with this the first time I made the cake. Firstly, I had no ground almonds, secondly I felt that the intensified orange flavour would drown out any almond notes so as I had a bag of pecan halves it seemed to me that this was the flavour match I needed. This sounds like a way to shoehorn an advert for pecans into my recipe, it’s honestly not, I promise (laughs).
I’ve made this cake several times now and with each tiny tweak it got better and better, now I’m totally satisfied with the end result. So this is my Roast Orange and Pecan Cake to celebrate our time in Pignoulet.

If you like the idea of this Roast Orange Cake, then give these a try
I have a lot of fruit and vegetable inspired cakes on the website now so I’ve taken the liberty of adding a few links below to tickle your taste buds.



Roast Orange and Pecan Cake Recipe
If you make it and like the recipe I would be eternally grateful if you popped back and commented leaving a star rating as this will tell search engines that this recipe is worth checking out and others will get to find it in searches.

Roast Orange and Pecan Cake
Ingredients
- 1 large orange(s)
- 150 g pecans blended into fine crumbs
- 150 g light brown sugar
- 200 g gluten free self raising flour I used Free From Fairy Flour
- 2 egg(s) flax seed eggs 2tbsp flaxseed and 100ml cold water
- 50 ml olive oil
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 100 ml water
For the orange glaze
- 1 orange juiced
- 50 g light brown sugar
- 1 tsp Cointreau optional
Instructions
To roast the orange
- Simply massage olive oil into the orange skin and bake in a roasting tin in the oven for 40mins on 200°C/180°C Fan.
- After 40mins remove from oven and cool
To make the cake
- Once the orange has cooled cut into chunks and add whole, including the skin and pith to a blender, blitz into a paste and tip into a mixing bowl/cake mixer.
- Add the ground pecans, sugar, flour, olive oil and 2 eggs (or flaxseed eggs) to a mixer and combine on a slow speed.
- Start to add the 100ml of water until you achieve a soft dropping consistency, you may need a little less, or a little more depending on absorbency of the flour you use.
- Spoon into a greased and lined cake tin or flan tin, I used a 9” fluted flan tin with a loose bottom.
- Smooth down the surface with a wet metal spoon and if you have extra pecan halves use these to decorate the cake.
- Cook in the oven at 200°C/180°C Fan for 30mins.
To make the orange glaze
- Add the juice of the other orange to a saucepan with the sugar and heat rapidly to melt the sugar, keep stiring for 5-10mins and the glaze will begin to thicken.
- Remove from heat and at this stage you can add your orange liqueur if you wish to use it.
- With the cake removed from the oven and cooled you can now add the glaze which will continue to thicken slightly as it cools.
- The glaze will harden as the cake completely cools and create a delicious sugary crust.
Nutrition
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Great to find GF, DF and egg free recipes!
Do you think this would work with honey. Two of my family are gluten, lactose and sugar intolerant!
Hi there Jeanette, that’s a struggle bless you. My BIL had a very limited diet for his eczema a few years ago and sugar was out of the question. If you can I would opt for as thick a honey as possible (not clear honey) and you may also find you need to increase the flour to get a soft dropping consistency to the cake batter, otherwise it may be too wet. Sugar acts as an important structure as well as sweetener. It returns to its solid form helping to bind. This is why you need to think of ways to replace that building block. I would love to know how you get on. I can imagine the end result is going to taste AWESOME with caramelised orange and honey tones to it xxx
What a Chic Cake! It sounds incredible too! What a wonderful idea. I love the orange and pecan combo idea. I bet it’s incredible warm with cream for the non free from amongst us. Fruity cakes warm with cream are a bit of a passion of mine! Thank you so much for sharing with us at #BakingCrumbs Glad you had a great weekend away, sounds heavenly.
ooh yes I would defo have lashing of cream if I could – yummy x
What a gorgeous cake! And a lovely way to take you straight back to that amazing weekend! Could definitely do with a dose of sun & Pilates right now! Love the new pinnable images too! #CookBlogShare
Thank you sweetheart, wish we were there now xx
How funny! I’ve actually made a cake with boiled oranges and almonds last week (watch the space)! Great minds and all that! lol The pecans sound like a great pairing with orange and I bet your house smelled amazing of lovely citrus as you were roasting the orange and then baking a cake (mine did)! Gorgeous bake! Thanks for sharing with #BakingCrumbs ::) x
Love how the universe works in mysterious way – feel like breaking into song but I wont hahaha!