You can make the Mandarin Cake in any season, in the winter months with fresh tangerines and the rest of the year with tangerine wedges. It is a fresh sweet cake with a rich creamy filling that everyone will enjoy, your guests will certainly appreciate your baking! Mandarins belong to the citrus fruit, a plant genus that has been cultivated for thousands of years and originated in China. The mandarins that we eat here mostly come from Spain or Morocco. The recipe for the cake that we are going to make comes from Germany, a country with a rich cake culture. Roll up your sleeves and go into the kitchen!
Not difficult
The cake is not difficult to make and if you have children who are happy to help you bake, they will also have a lot of fun preparing this cake. Let them knead the dough while you make the filling, which is more of an adult thing.
When you use fresh mandarins, the children are also equally sweet with peeling and removing ‘white threads’. When the tangerines are peeled, the white threads on the outside can be carefully brushed off before dividing the tangerines into wedges. Take seedless mandarins that are not dry but nice and juicy, that’s important.
Supplies for the cake
Ingredients for the dough:
- 250 grams of sifted flour
- 150 grams of butter
- 100 grams of sugar
- 1 egg
- pinch of salt
- 1 sachet of baking powder
Ingredients for the filling:
- 250 ml of milk
- 250 ml of cream
- 2 vanilla sticks
- 12.5 grams of gelatin
- 5 egg yolks
- 150 grams of sugar
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- juice of 1 tangerine or a dash of tangerine syrup
- dash of orange liqueur: Grand Marnier (optional)
Ingredients for the topping
- 2 cans of tangerine wedges or 10 fresh tangerines
- 125 grams of sifted icing sugar
- 100 ml strained tangerine juice
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Sweet shortcrust pastry
We start with making the dough, a sweet crust dough that you can also use for other types of cakes such as the well-known apple pie. Use butter and always sift the flour you use, this will make the baking considerably lighter.
Bake blind
We are going to bake the dough blind, that is to say that we let the dough bake without filling and to prevent the edges from collapsing we use a “blind filling” of dry beans on baking paper that we put on the dough.
The blind filling is not used in the recipe, the dough is only filled with vanilla pudding after pre-baking.
Preparation of the dough:
- Add flour, butter, sugar, egg, pinch of salt and the sachet of baking powder and knead it into a smooth dough,
- grease a springform pan with some butter and dust the edges with flour,
- press the dough into the mold and against the edges,
- put it in the refrigerator for half an hour and then prick the dough all over with a fork, preheat the oven to 200 °
- cover the dough with baking paper, now fill it to the brim with dried beans and bake at 180 ° for 12 to 15 minutes,
- remove the paper and beans and bake at 180 ° for another 10 to 15 minutes until the dough is set.
The filling, vanilla pudding with orange liqueur
Set the pan with the baked dough aside for a while while we are going to make the filling. This filling consists of a vanilla pudding that we season with some orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier. It is not necessary, it does give a bit more spice.
Preparation of the filling:
- Bring the milk to the boil with a splash of the cream, the vanilla pods and a third of the sugar,
- put the gelatin sheets to soak in a container with water,
- separate the egg yolks well from the white and beat the egg yolks with a third of the sugar,
- add half a cup of the boiling milk to the egg yolks, stir and pour it back into the rest of the milk,
- bring the mixture back to a boil, note: do not boil anymore because the eggs will curdle,
- take the pan with the mixture off the heat and add the soaked and squeezed gelatin,
- add the juice of one tangerine or the squeeze of canned tangerine syrup
- let the gelatin dissolve and now pour the milk, egg, gelatin and mandarin juice mixture through a fine sieve,
- beat the rest of the cream stiff with the last third of the sugar and mix in the grated lemon zest,
- allow the pudding to cool and add the whipped cream, toss, do not stir,
- you can add a splash of orange liqueur to spice up the filling,
- pour the pudding mass in the spring form over the baked dough and put the cake in the fridge,
- the gelatin in the pudding needs at least an hour to set, only then can we finish the cake.
Note: just give the filling time to stiffen and do not use more gelatin than necessary, otherwise the filling will become too firm and that is not tasty, it must keep its creamy character without collapsing.
The finishing touch, decorate with tangerine wedges and tangerine syrup
First, drain the tangerine wedges from the can and keep the juice or divide 8 fresh tangerines into wedges and squeeze 2 or 3 tangerines until you have obtained 100ml of juice. When the pie filling has become sufficiently firm we can decorate the pie, spread the tangerine wedges evenly over the entire surface of the pie. You can leave the cake as is, but we choose to provide the cake with a tangerine syrup top layer. When using canned tangerines, mix 50 ml of the syrup from the can with 50 ml of water, you do not need to mix the fresh tangerine juice with water, you strain the juice in both cases.
Preparation of the tangerine syrup topping
- Boil the sifted icing sugar with the tangerine juice and the lemon juice until a clear, viscous mass,
- let it cool slightly and spread it over the cake while the tangerine syrup is still a little warm, done!
When the top layer is no longer warm, put the cake in the fridge for an hour before serving with a sprinkle of whipped cream.
Creme fraiche
You can replace the cream in the filling with crème fraiche, which is also very tasty. You can also put chopped tangerine wedges through the filling and only put some tangerine wedges in a nice pattern on the top layer as decoration.
Fun facts about tangerines
The mandarin is not only a juicy fruit, it is also packed with healthy vitamins and minerals and contains the substance synephrine, a natural remedy that stimulates the digestion. The large amounts of dietary fiber also contribute to this.
Mandarin is a citrus fruit that is widely cultivated in subtropical and tropical regions around the world. There are many different types of which the Owari Satsuma and the Clementines are the best known.
The peel of the mandarin contains a volatile aromatic oil with a sweet and fresh scent that has a pleasant influence on the mood. The botanical name of the mandarin is Citrus reticulata, this tree originating in China is not hardy at all and can therefore only survive in a heated greenhouse. In summer, however, a tangerine tree on the terrace is a boon for the eye and your nose, the blossom has an unbeatable pleasant scent and the leaves also smell fresh, sweet and spicy. The name mandarin is said to have been taken from the name of the high-ranking officials in ancient Imperial China, who wore an orange robe and received the fruits of the mandarin tree as a gift of appreciation for their good works. Another explanation for the name is that the fruit is naturally common on the island of Mandara.