Unlike Paris, where your foot may land in a little souvenir from a spoilt pooch, in Seville it is more likely that you will inadvertently juice an orange under your sole. The streets are splattered with crushed oranges at this time of year, yet the beautifully pruned orange trees of the city are still baubled with fruits among the greenery.

But why is it that nobody shimmies up the trunk to grab a thirst-quenching orange on a warm day? Because they are Seville oranges, thick-skinned and bitter; good for that waste-not-want-not British pastime of marmalade-making. The “other” Spanish orange, the navel, is the one that is piled high at market stalls, eaten on the buses, sliced into salads of onions and olives, squeezed over grilled tuna and pressed into frothy, tangy juices.

I came home warmed by the sun, my tastebuds craving more oranges. The flourless orange-and-almond cake is one of the finest forms for an orange, so I set to making this half cake-half pudding within a day of getting back.

The recipe here is based on the Sephardic orange-and-almond cake in Claudia Roden’s incomparable A New Book of Middle Eastern Food. My contribution is to separate the eggs, making a cake that is lighter and less dense than the original, but as rich, moist and fragrant.

Ingredients

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 2½ hr

Serves 6 to 8

Serve with a dollop of Greek yoghurt or rich cream.

3 medium oranges
6 eggs, separated
225g caster sugar
200g ground almonds
1tsp baking powder

METHOD: Place the clean, whole and unpeeled fruit in water to cover, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 1½ hours or until soft, adding more water when necessary. Drain the oranges, cut into quarters, discard any major pips, and whiz the rest, including peel, in the food-processor, then cool. Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl until pale. Beat in the oranges, almonds, and baking powder. Beat the egg whites until softly peaky and fold gently into the mixture.

Pour into a 23cm (9in) springform cake tin and bake for an hour, until firm to the touch (cover with a loose sheet of foil if over-browning). Cool in the tin and dust with icing sugar to serve.

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