Chocolate Orange Cake

When my lovely friend Brenda from Tea and Wheaten Bread suggested this recipe to her forum buddies I knew it had to be good. The original cake is a slab cake but I decided to make it in a round tin this time. The cake is so very orangey and has a rich quite grown up taste. For me, this cake would be fantastic warm with cream as a pudding, but to be honest it's going to taste great any way it's served.
We're a family of chocolate orange lovers. To make it more fun for the kids, I have in mind to make this recipe with bright orange frosting (using another new recipe that I just discovered) and decorated with chocolate orange segments. Would look great for Halloween too!

Brenda's Chocolate Orange Cake

Ingredients


250g Butter or Margarine
250g Dark brown sugar
200g S.R Flour or plain flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder (sifted)
50 g cocoa powder
3 Eggs (beaten)
2 large tablespoons marmalade
Rind of two oranges and juice of one

Icing
2-3 tablespoons orange juice
2oz icing sugar

A few squares of chocolate melted with a little oil or butter (optional)

Method

Pre Heat your oven to 180.C/160.C Fan/400.F/Gas 6

Grease and line a shallow baking tray 24 cms x 33 cms/ 13 inches x 9 1/2 inches.

Leave an over hang lengthwise of your lining paper so the cake can be removed from the tin easily.

Melt butter and marmalade in microwave on 50% power or in a large saucepan on the hob.

Stir in sugar, then the flour and cocoa powder, add the eggs, orange zest and juice from the oranges (reserving about three tablespoons of juice for drizzle icing.) stirring well. A whisk is good.

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for approx 20 - 30 minutes until the cake is springy to touch.

Leave in the tin until cold before removing

Sieve the icing sugar and mix with the juice giving a fairly runny icing.

Drizzle over the cake

Melt the chocolate and oil if using and drizzle over.

Cut into squares/fingers

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

A friend of mine gave me this recipe and I had to make it purely out of curiosity. My little girl is a mayonnaise-aholic, very much like myself so the idea of a mayonnaise cake was certainly appealing.
The cake does have a different texture to any other that I have made, and to me it's best served like a pudding with some cream or icecream.

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake:

250 g self-raising flour
50 g cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
200 g golden caster sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
150 ml water
200 g mayonnaise
1 medium egg

Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas 4, butter and flour a 24 cm springform tin.

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a large bowl., then stir in the sugar and make a well in the centre. Add the vanilla, 150ml cold water, the mayo and egg. Mix until smooth.

Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve warm with berries and cream/crème fraîche for pudding, or allow the cake to cool completely and ice with fudge frosting and serve with tea.