Chocolate Orange Dream

My housemates are bigggg chocolate orange fans and so after handing in my dissertation I thought I’d celebrate. Any normal person would probably go to the pub and celebrate with a glass of wine but i decided to celebrate by baking, obviously aided with a bottle of wine.

This recipe was adopted from Mary Berry’s chocolate and orange cake, i chose to add the juice of an orange to make the orange flavour that little more intense. The result; a perfectly balanced rich chocolate cake with a mouth watering orange flavour, what a dream combination.

Chocolate Orange Cake

• 100g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
• 50g good quality cocoa powder
• 90ml boiling water
• 3 large free-range eggs
• 4 tbsp milk
• 175g self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 rounded tsp baking powder, sifted into the flour
• 300g golden caster sugar
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• Juice of half an orange

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/fan160°C/gas 4. Grease 3 x 20cm round sandwich tins and line the bases with baking paper.
2. Measure the cocoa and boiling water into a large bowl and mix to a paste. Add the remaining ingredients and beat again until combined
3. Divide the sponge mixture evenly between the prepared tins. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes until the sponges are well risen and shrinking away from the sides of the tin. Remove the sponges from the oven, turn out of their tins onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely

Chocolate Orange Ganache

• 200g dark chocolate
• 200ml double cream
• Half grated orange
• 2 tbsp icing sugar

1.  For the icing and filling, put the chocolate and cream in a bowl, Then stand over a pan of simmering water for 10 minutes until melted (don’t let the bowl touch the water), stirring from time to time. Set aside to cool until it thickens to a spreadable consistency
2. Add the grated orange and shift in the icing sugar stir until combined
3. To finish spread the top of two sponges with the icing and put on top of each other. Cover the top of the cake with the remainder of the icing, then grate any left over orange zest on the top