Orange and Vanilla Almond Cake

This is an adaptation from Nigella Lawson's Damp Lemon Almond cake. I do love Lemon cake but as there were no Lemons in the house I decided to make it with Oranges, then thought vanilla would be a nice mellower of the sharpness from the citrus. I also made some other changes based on what I had and time.
The resulting cake is a delicious moist cake with an old world flavour like an orange sherbert, maybe I should call it Orange Sherbert cake.

RECIPE (I converted it to imperial)
Pre heat Oven to 180'C
8ozs soft butter *(see notes)
8ozs sugar
4 eggs
2ozs flour
8ozs ground almonds * (see notes)
tspn vanilla essence
grated zest of 2 oranges and juice of 1 (or both if small)
20cm springform tin greased and floured

METHOD
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. I use a handheld electric whisk. Now add the eggs one at a time and beat in with a wooden spoon, add a little flour after each egg. After all the eggs are incorporated add the ground almonds and vanilla essence, orange zest and juice and gently stir in.
Pour the mixture into the buttered and floured cake tin.
I like to Sprinkle the top with flaked almonds and sugar, this will give you a lovely crisp and crunchy top.
Bake for approx 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool
Turn out of tin and sprinkle with icing (confectioner's) sugar to serve.
This cake keeps really well. wrap in tin foil and keep for up to a week.......but don't worry it won't last that long
notes
* if  am using butter straight from the fridge I cut into cubes and place in the bowl in the pre heating oven for a minute, this softens it up but do not let it start to melt
** I know that grinding your own almonds is the best way BUT sometimes life is too short. If you are going to grind your own I recommend using flaked almonds, toast lightly and grind to fine dust. These will give you a more textured cake. You can add a few crushed flaked almonds to the bought ones as a cheat way to acccomplish this.

ready to go in the oven

fresh out of the oven see the shiny crisp sugar top

sprinkled with icing sugar ready to eat

yum!