Baking for colleagues is incredibly rewarding. Baking for colleagues and asking them to make a donation to charity is even more rewarding. And when the charity is the organisation we all work for, it feels like some kind of virtuous (although slightly insane) circle.
I wanted to make a chocolatey almondy cake… and when I came across a chocolatey, orangey almondy cake recipe I knew it was The One. I’d never tried a recipe where you boil the orange in water for half an hour and then smoosh it up in a food processor (or liquidiser in my case) and add the whole thing to the cake mixture. But I have now! And so can you, it makes for a deliciously moist and tasty cake.
The other brilliant thing about this recipe is that it is ridiculously simple – it doesn’t need any elbow grease, beating butter and sugar till fluffy. In fact it is like a carrot cake recipe in that it uses oil instead of butter. Try it and see – but make sure you have lots of friends who want to eat it, it’s a big beast of a cake!
Chocolate truffle icing on the orange almond chocolate cake
Orange almond and chocolate cake
Pre-heat oven to 180C / GM4
Prepare a 24cm deep (or springform) tin
- 2 oranges
- 150g dark chocolate
- 5 eggs
- 400g vanilla caster sugar
- 350g sunflower oil
- 125g ground almonds
- 25g cocoa powder
- 375g plain flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 3-4 TBsp grand marnier or cointreau
for the icing
- 350g dark chocolate
- 225ml double cream
- Put the whole oranges in a pan and cover with water. Bring tot he boil and simmer for about 30 mins.
- Whizz them to a pulp in a food processor or a liquidiser (if you go down the liquidiser route you may have to cut them up into chunks before you put them in the goblet)
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water
- In a very large bowl (this is the bowl the cake batter will all end up in) beat together the eggs, sugar and the oil (I used a balloon whisk)
- Gradually beat in the orange puree, then the melted chocolate
- Sift the dry ingredients together (or whisk together with another balloon whisk) and then mix into the egg mixture
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes (a skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean)
- Turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool, and spoon over the orange liqueur to soak in while it is cooling
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool briefly
- Stir in the cream and keep stirring till smooth and glossy
- Set aside to cool and firm up slightly then spread over the cake with a palette knife
Serve with creme fraiche if you have any, if not, just eat it. In small slices, with a fork. It’s a VERY rich cake. But deliciously tasty – and usually I don’t approve of orange and chocolate together but this is my exception to that rule.
Nom nom nom – really moist chocolate cake
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