Chocolate Orange Cake
Chocolate Orange Cake
Mamta Gupta
This is a common cake, often made with chocolate and lemon or chocolate and vanilla, instead of orange.
Will make 8-10 slices.
Ingredients
175 gm. butter or margarine, at room temperature
75 gm. soft brown or caster sugar
60 ml. good honey (4 tbsp.)
3 standard eggs, separated
175. gm Self-raising flour
3-4 tbsp. or 45-60 ml. milk (use more if the batter is too thick)
25 gm. cocoa powder
Grated rind of 1/2 orange
A few drops of orange colouring
A sieve to sift the flour and cocoa powder
A 1 litre loaf tin
For soaking:
2 tbsp. orange juice
15-20 ml. honey
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 350?F or 180?C (10?C less in fan oven), gas mark 4.
Line the tin with a greased paper, with 2-3 inch overhanging on each side. This will enable you to lift the cake out of the tin with ease.
Beat egg white until stiff and makes soft peaks. When done, you should be able to turn the bowl up-side-down without the egg-white spilling out. Keep aside.
Place margarine, sugar and honey in a large bowl and cream until light and fluffy. Electric beater is good for this.
Add egg yolks and beat them in.
Sift the flour on top and fold these in by hand or on low speed of beater adding milk as you fold. It should be of dropping consistency. Add more milk, if required.
Take out half of this mix in another bowl.
To one half, add sifted cocoa powder and fold it in. If you don?t sift, you will get lumps of cocoa powder.
To the other half, add orange colour and orange rind and fold them in gently with a figure of eight movement.
Now add one half of beaten egg whites to each of these two mixes and fold it in. with a figure of eight movement.
Spread the mix into the tin in alternate layers.
Make a little depression along the centre of the cake with a knife.
Bake in a preheated oven for 50 minutes. Oven performances vary so check by inserting a skewer into the cake. It should come out moist but clean.
Remove from oven. After a few minutes, gently ease it out of the pan and leave on a wire rack to cool.
Heat honey and orange juice in a microwave for 1 minute. Make a few holes in the cake using a skewer and drizzle the juice-honey mix into these holes and into any cracks in the cake. Leave for a few minutes to soak.
Lift out of the tin onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely. Eat fresh or store in a cake tin.
