Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake

Theme 2: Citrus
Cookbook Used: Kitchen – Recipes from the Heart of the Home
Author: Nigella Lawson

It’s only the second theme of the cookbook challenge and I’m already falling behind. Oh well, better late than never!

This cake by Nigella is so good, even my temperamental oven did a good job! This cake is so lovely and moist, as well as light and fluffy. Hamsley called it the jaffa cake. The orange flavour isn’t over powering, it is just right.

I will definitely be making this again, and I suggest you give it a try yourself!

Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake

Nigella Lawson

(to my American friends, see the comments below for a translation of the ingredients and measurements)

150g soft unsalted butter, plus some for greasing
2 x 15ml tbsp golden syrup
175g dark muscovado sugar (or brown sugar)
150g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
25g best-quality cocoa powder, sifted
2 eggs
zest 2 oranges and juice of 1

1 x 900g (2lb) loaf tin

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan oven/gas mark 3 and line your loaf tin with baking parchment or a paper loaf-tin liner.

2. Beat the already soft butter with the syrup – if you dab a little oil on your tablespoon measure with a sheet of kitchen roll, the syrup shouldn’t stick to the spoon – and the sugar until you have a fairly smooth caffé Americano cream, though the sugar will always have a bit of grit about it.

3. Mix the flour, bicarb and cocoa powder together, and beat into the syrup mixture 1 tbsp of these dry ingredients before beating in 1 egg. Then add another couple of spoonfuls of the dry ingredients before beating in the second egg.

4. Carry on beating in the remaining dry ingredients and then add, still beating, the orange zest and finally, gradually, the juice. At this stage, the batter may suddenly look dimpled as if slightly curdled. No need to panic!

5. Pour and scrape into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes, though check 5 minutes before and be prepared to keep it in the oven 5 minutes longer if need be. . A cake tester won’t come out entirely clean, as the point of this cake, light though it may be, is to have just a hint of inner gunge. Leave to cool a little in the tin on a wire rack, then turn out with care and leave on the rack to cool.

Make ahead note: the cake can be baked up to 3 days ahead. Wrap tightly in clingfilm and store in airtight container. Will keep for 5 days in total.

Freeze note: The cake can be frozen, tightly wrapped in a double layer of clingfilm and a layer of foil, for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight at room temperature.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.