Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Chocolate Orange Cake


Word can't describe how lovely this cake actually is, light, moist, decadent, everyone who tried it raved. I made this cake on the Brisbane Exhibition Show day during my prolific afternoon of baking and cooking, referred to in the next post.

Inspired by Niki's gorgeous cake combined with the fact that I had just purchased Nigella Lawson's Feast the day before made my baking this cake a fate accomplii.

I decided to take to work to treat my colleagues and they expressed their appreciation prolifically, so it will be more cake for them another day.

I decided to use Niki's lovely ganache to the top and everyone who tried it said they couldn't imagine the cake without it. I will have to make sure that next time, I let the ganache cool some more before applying to the cake. I will leave you to discover the recipe for the ganache on Niki's blog but I will add the recipe for the cake here for posterity:

1 large navel orange (approx 400g)
6 eggs
1 heaped tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
200g ground salmonds
250g caster sugar
50g cocoa
orange peel for decoration if wanted

Preheat the oven to 180c. Butter and line a 20cm springform tin.

Put the whole orange in a pan with cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours or until soft. Drain and, when cool, cut the oranges in half and remove any big pips. Then pulp everything- pith, peel and all - in a food processor.

Add the eggs, baking powder, bicarb of soda, almonds, sugar and cocoa to the orange in the food processor. Run the motor until you have a cohesive cake mixture, but still slightly knobbly with the flecks of pureed orange.

Pour into the tin and bake for an hour by which time the cake tester should come out clean. Check after 45minutes in case you need to cover with foil to prevent the cake burning before it is cooked through or it may just need less than an hour depending on the oven.

Leave the cake to cool in the tin, on a cooling rack.

Make ganache as per Niki's recipe however make sure you leave to cool and thicken. I put mine on prematurely and lost quite a bit of ganache as it spilled onto the plate when still runny.

Zest some orange peel and decorate.



Flourless chocolate and orange cake.

8 comments:

Amanda said...

Hi Anne

Welcome, I hope you do get to try this cake it is one of the best!.

Niki said...

Apparently it's also really good using mandarins too. Your looks great; I like the shininess of your ganache. It's like a Sachertorte. I haven't yet achieved the perfect ganache consistency. I tend to start beating it when still warm, and beating it too long so it ends up with the consistency of whipped cream, which isn't quite what I want. Guess I just need to be a bit more patient, and let it chill first...!

Anonymous said...

Wow. that looks fabulous.

Kelly said...

Hi Lushlife, this looks fantastic! Orange and chocolate go so well together. Your colleagues are very lucky!

Amanda said...

Thanks Barbara and Kelly, I made another one on Friday night and I did a better job on the Ganache, I beat it then poured some just over the top and then chilled the ganache for about 10- 15 minutes until I could apply it to the sides without dripping too much it worked much better all round.

Unknown said...

I opted to leave the ground salmons out. Big mistake

Unknown said...

Opted to leave the ground salmonds out. Big mistake

Unknown said...

I know it wasnt funny the first time

About Me

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Mother of two with one of each. Wife of one.Dogless. Busy working five days a week, baking and cooking when time allows. Writing rarely these days. Wishing I had time to read more often.