Dark chocolate and orange cake

If you've read my previous entries you'll know I'm a bit of a sucker for fine chocolate. I'm celebrating having a whole month off work this weekend so something special was called for to follow last night's home made pizza. I haven't posted a recipe before but this dark chocolate and orange cake was so tasty and really quite simple to make. We bought some very good quality dark chocolate (Valrhona's Guanaja - 70%) from our favourite chocolate shop in Henley during the week and then I searched my cook books for some inspiration. I just wasn't sure what I fancied and in the end I remembered tearing a recipe out of an old magazine recently and decided to give it a try. It's supposed to have a white chocolate and icing sugar topping but personally I love the simplicity of a warm chocolate pudding with cream.

As long as you have an electric whisk this really takes very little effort. You'll need a bit of elbow grease though if you're whisking it by hand.



You will need:

100g butter
100g dark chocolate broken into pieces
125g caster sugar
3 large eggs, separated
finely grated zest of 2 oranges (or 1 large one)
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons Cointreau
30g plain flour, sifted
25g cocoa powder, sifted

Warm the oven to 180C or gas mark 4. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin (it doesn't need to be very deep) and in the meantime melt the broken chocolate in a bowl over gently simmering water. As soon as it has melted take the pan off the heat and allow to cool a little.

Cream together the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until light and fluffy then add the egg yolks one at a time. Carry on whisking until it's smooth and creamy. Add the orange zest and juice, Cointreau and melted chocolate. Mix a little then fold in the flour and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until they form medium peaks then fold one large tablespoon into the cake mix to loosen it. Carefully fold in the rest of the egg white until fully mixed (but be gentle). Turn the mix into the cake tin, smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean.

You'll end up with a dense, chocolatey cake that's wonderfully good warm with a large dollop of thick cream. I can feel a trip to the gym coming on just thinking about it. And the good news is - we've still got plenty left for today!