Cake Friday: Chocolate Orange Fudge Cake

Even though I had been asked to make another carrot cake (a really big one this time), I decided to go for a chocolate fudge cake. I wanted to do something a bit different so decided to try a zesty orange one...delicious! Went down soooo well! Apart from a customer coming into the office as I was desperately scraping the plate for left over icing. The only change I would make would be to use a better quality chocolate. I used a supermarkets own dark chocolate and it was a bit bitter. I'd probably recommend (i will defo do this next time) using actual orange chocolate...not sure if you can get it in a large bar, but you could always melt down an actual Chocolate Orange, or the Green & Blacks with orange and spices might also be pretty good...my mouth is watering at the thought!!

Here's the recipe so you can try it out for yourself...

Cake:

6oz Margarine or butter

6oz Caster Sugar

3 Eggs

3 tbs Golden Syrup

6oz Self Raising Flour

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 oz Cocoa Powder

Zest of an orange

Icing:

8oz Plain Chocolate

2oz Dark Brown Sugar

8oz Butter

5 tbs Milk

1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence

A big squeeze of orange juice (if you are just using plain chocolate)

Icing:

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and heat gently until melted. Transfer into a bowl and cool in the fridge until set (mine took about an hour and a half)

Cake:

1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

2. Beat in the eggs and golden syrup

3. Gradually mix in the flour, salt and cocoa powder

4. Stir in the orange zest and a few squeezes of orange juice

5. Grease two round tins and distribute the mixture evenly between them, spreading out with a knife

6. Bake on Gas Mark 4 for 30-35 minutes

7. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave until completely cool

8. Sandwich the cakes together with half the icing and spread the other half over the cake and round the sides.

9. Put the kettle on, make a nice cup of tea and treat yourself to a big slice! Well, you've earned it!!