Today I’m sharing the best ever chocolate orange cake recipe. I wish I could claim ownership of it because it is brilliant, but sadly I cannot. In fact, I can’t even claim to have stumbled across the recipe myself, because it was my housemate Sarah who first found it and made it. On each of the many many occasions it has been baked in our house, it has gone down a storm with friends and work colleagues and family, so I can promise it will be popular with yours too.
Most recently I baked this best ever chocolate orange cake for my new friends on my creative meditation course that I’ve been doing every Wednesday evening for 6 weeks now, and they loved it too. I’ll blog next week about my new found love of meditation, because it deserves a whole post of its own, but I highly recommend you have a read when I do – it just might be what you didn’t know you were looking for.
So, back to the cake at hand. Chocolate and orange. A perfect combination, ever since it was discovered by Terry back in 1760.* Dawn French is rumoured to be a fan. Mr Jaffa has been making his living from it for many years now. And today, I bring it to you, in the form of an easy-to-make, cheap and quick loaf cake. I’ve also made mini individual versions of it in my Lakeland mini loaf tin which are also incredibly popular, and to my mind give a better chocolate topping to moist cake ratio as well! It would equally work as a traybake too. Basically a brilliant versatile recipe you need in your life!
Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake
Credit: Linda at Doe’s Kitchen
Ingredients
- 150g softened butter
- 2 tbsps golden syrup
- 175g light muscovado sugar
- 150g plain flour
- ½tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 25g good quality cocoa powder
- 2 eggs, beaten
- zest of 2 oranges
- juice of 1 orange
- 100g dark chocolate
Method
- Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/150°C.
- Grease and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.
- Beat butter, golden syrup and sugar until well mixed – this takes a good few minutes with an electric whisk, perhaps not to be attempted without one!
- Gradually add eggs, beating until incorporated.
- Sift in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder, and fold in to the mixture.
- Add nearly all the orange zest (reserve a few strands for decoration) and the orange juice a little at a time until the mixture is a ‘soft dropping’ consistency (i.e. when you lift the spoon up it plops off easily!).
- Pour into your loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes. You may need to add another 10 mins or so if your oven is not fan assisted. Check it is cooked when skewer comes out clean.
- Leave to cool for ten minutes in the tin, then lift it out with the greaseproof paper and leave it to cool on a rack.
- When the cake is completely cool, melt your chocolate either over a pan of simmering water or very carefully on a low temperature in the microwave in a small jug. Once melted, drizzle it back and forth over the cake until you have covered the top completely. Sprinkle the remaining zest over the cake, and put in the fridge to set.
- Enjoy!
So, once you have made this best ever chocolate orange cake, invite all your friends round, because otherwise you will be tempted to eat the entire thing. It is that good.
*This claim may involve a little artistic licence.
This chocolate cake sounds so sinfully tempting. Perfect cake and oh so yum ganache/icing! I could have a slice right now. Welcome back to FF and enjoy! I am Jhuls, btw. 😉
Great to meet you! I already had a look at your blog, loving how many cuisines you’ve got covered! I shall be trying some of your recipes I am sure!
Thank you so much. And thank you for following my blog. Looking forward to following yours, too! Happy weekend. <3
Lovely cake, Anna. Thanks for bringing it to the FF party!
Hi Anjana, thanks! Loving your blog, the home decor stuff and the cleaning and organising tips (two things close to my heart!) especially! Looking forward to reading more!
Thank you! So glad to hear that you enjoyed my blog. Visit often!
Oh yes, chocolate and orange is the perfect combination! Anna, I can totally see why this cake would go down like a storm — so moist and decadent looking! Though I wouldn’t wait to have this as dessert — I’m more likely to have it for breakfast with coffee. What can I say? Cake sweetens the day. 🙂
Why not? In Italy cake for breakfast is normal! (and having lived there so long, I feel I can legitimately have picked up a few ‘Italianisms’!!) Do it!
Hi Anna, nice to meet you and see you at Fiesta Friday, thank you so much for coming along and bringing such a luscious cake!! Always a winner: orange and chocolate 🙂
Thanks Elaine! Now I just need to work on making a healthier version that I can eat more often! 😉
Ha ha!! It can be done 🙂
hi Anna, cake looks very moist and delicious…thanx to fiesta friday where am meeting awesome people like you with delicious recipes….happy FF..
It’s a great way to discover new blogs I agree! Love yours – homecooked Indian food is so wonderful, and I love the story of how your husband inspired you to blog – well done him! 🙂
Orange and chocolate are made for each other… this cake is absolutely sinful!! I can’t wait to make this… it looks so moist, so rich and chocolatey, I can only imagine how the orange brings it all together… Love this!! Awesome post, Anna!! <3
Thanks Prudy, and congrats on your hundredth post! Huge achievement! 🙂
Yum, I think I’ll take a slice of this delicious cake with a scoop of the raspberry ice cream.
Oooh, nice idea! I did think about trying it warm with vanilla ice cream as well, I confess!
Wow! Thanks for posting this. I love that chocolate/orange combo!
Thanks Dave. It’s a classic, but would love to be a bit more adventurous – some of your flavour combinations are awesome!
Thanks!! Have a great day!
I’m glad to see I am not the only one who looks at a beautiful, rich cake like this and thinks ‘breakfast’, with coffee of course. Thanks for a delicious start to my day.
Anna, the cake looks decadent but easy. Will definitely try it soon.
Thanks, hope you enjoy it!
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