chocolate orange cake

Last weekend was spent making a couple of chocolate cakes for other people's Chrimble celebrations so no experiments came out of my kitchen cake-wise.

Christmastime always makes me want to make more cake. It's lovely to be able to give a gift of something you've made yourself and what could be more Christmassy than chocolate orange cake. This one is destined for my aunts and cousins as they are rather partial to a bit of cake... must run in the family.

I was thinking of those scrummy Terry's chocolate oranges that you have to bash really hard to get them apart so it involved a bit of cake mix sampling to ensure the right level of orange. So I started with my very chocolate cake recipe and adapted it with orange juice, zest and marmalade for added the orangeyness.

100g dark chocolate, melted and allowed to cool slightly
250g butter, at room temperature
250g light muscovado sugar
½ tsp salt
50g cocoa powder (I like Green & Blacks)
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
zest of 2 oranges
juice of 2 oranges (about 150ml)

to fill
2-3 tbsp orange marmalade (the one with the bits in)
100g butter
200g icing sugar

Prepare in the same way as the very chocolate cake but add the orange zest with the butter and sugar at the start. The orange juice goes in at the end instead of the milk until you have a dropping consistency. Bake for 25-30 minutes and allow to cool.

For the filling, cream the butter and gradually add the icing sugar.  Add the marmalade according to how tangy you want it.  I like the bitterness of the marmalade sweetened up by the butter icing so you end up with that sweet and sour creaminess.

Sandwich together the two halves with the butter icing in the middle.  Try to make sure you get the butter icing all the way to the edge so you can run a wet finger round it (don't lick it unless you're going to eat the whole cake yourself!) to make a smooth edge.  Makes it easier for getting the chocolate covering even on the edges.

I intended to add a bit of orange extract in the covering but had run out.

Smother with the chocolate cake covering and leave to set.  I decorated this cake with the orange bits from mixed peel and some more cocoa powder just in case it wasn't chocolatey enough!


Now what to do with all that left over mincemeat and cream?