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 Fudge Cake - A birthday surprise

I decided to make a surprise cake for my friend's birthday. Milly loves chocolate and all things sweet and gorgeous, so I chose Nigella's chocolate fudge cake. I have to say that this is the chocolate cake recipe I rely on the most. It's deliciously moist, rich enough without being over the top and has the most amazing fudgy chocolate icing that covers the whole cake. It makes quite a tall cake with just two layers, so it looks grand on it's cake plate too.
Another of my friend's loves is Ferrero Rocher chocolates so I topped the cake with some of these nuggety truffles and finished off with gold stamped chocolate stars and gold glitter.
I love giving presents, probably more than receiving them and it's even more special to me when I get to make the gift too.

Chocolate Fudge Cake:

FOR THE CAKE:

400g plain flour
250g golden caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g best quality cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
142ml/small tub sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml chilled water

FOR THE FUDGE ICING:

175g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
250g unsalted butter, softened
275g icing sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.

Butter and line the bottom of two 20cm sandwich tins.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In another bowl or wide-necked measuring jug whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended. Using a freestanding or handheld electric mixer, beat together the melted butter and corn oil until just blended (you’ll need another large bowl for this if using the hand whisk; the freestanding mixer comes with its own bowl), then beat in the water. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix together on a slow speed. Add the egg mixture, and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the prepared tins. And actually, you could easily do this manually; I just like my toys and find the KitchenAid a comforting presence in itself.

Bake the cakes for 50–55 minutes, or until a cake-tester comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for 15 minutes, and then turn the cakes out onto the rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, melt the chocolate in the microwave – 2–3 minutes on medium should do it – or in a bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and let cool slightly.

In another bowl beat the butter until it’s soft and creamy (again, I use the KitchenAid here) and then add the sieved icing sugar and beat again until everything’s light and fluffy. I know sieving is a pain, the one job in the kitchen I really hate, but you have to do it or the icing will be unsoothingly lumpy. Then gently add the vanilla and chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth.

Sandwich the middle of the cake with about a quarter of the icing, and then ice the top and sides too, spreading and smoothing with a rubber spatula.

Decorate as much or as little as you like.

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.