Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake

This week I have made a Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake in honour of the Great British Bake Off and as part of the #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong.

The new series started this week with a whole set of new bakers and new challenges for us baking addicts to soak up. The first episode had the bakers taking on drizzle cakes, jaffa cakes and mirror cakes. I  was pleased to see that they were going back to some basics that we might at least have heard of!  One of the things that I love about Bake Off is how it manages to have me on the edge of my seat gasping about buttercream disasters and unrisen cakes, and there was plenty of that in the first episode!

Given the choice of the three rounds from week 1, I decided against making a mirror cake (too scary) and thought I would combine the other two rounds of drizzle cake and jaffa cakes into one. So I made a Chocolate Orange Drizzle cake. It's a moist chocolate orange cake with orange curd running through it and orange sugar drizzle poured over the top. It really does taste quite like a jaffa cake!

A lot of orange cakes can be quite disappointing on the flavour front, perhaps because oranges have a more subtle flavour than say lemon or lime. So, for a really good orange flavour running through the cake, you need to use the large oranges that you buy individually at the supermarket. I used Valencia oranges as they have a nice tangy flavour. The zest flavours the cake and the juice is used for the drizzle. Then there's extra 'orangeness' from the orange curd.

I always used to dread recipes that needed zest, but since I bought a very swish zester from Lakeland, I can have a large orange zested evenly in about 15 seconds. It was well worth the money! 

Once you've made the cake, you'll have one zested orange left  over- I juiced mine and drank it, but you could use it to make a smoothie or freeze it as an ice lolly too.

Ingredients

200g butter, softenend
200g caster sugar
3 eggs
160g self-raising flour
90g ground almonds
1/2 tsp baking powder
110ml milk
4 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp orange curd
2 large oranges

50g caster sugar (for the drizzle)

Method

1. Cream the butter and the sugar together until smooth.
2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well in between.
3. Zest the oranges and mix the zest into the batter.
4. Add all the dry ingredients and mix in until well combined.
5. Pour in the milk a little at a time, mixing as you go until you have a loosened cake batter.
6. Pour three quarters of the batter into a greased or lined 2lb loaf tin and then spoon the orange curd in a line down the middle. 
7.Add the remaining batter over the top and smooth it across.
8. Pop in the oven at 160 (140 fan, gas mark 3) for 55 minutes or until a sharp knife comes out clean.
9. Slice one  of the oranges in half and juice it, straining it if necessary to remove any little bits of pips.
10. Mix the juice with the extra caster sugar. 
11. When you have removed the cake from the oven use a sharp knife to make small holes in the top of the cake and pour the drizzle slowly over the cake.
12. Leave the cake to cool fully before slicing.