Chocolate Orange Bundt Cake

It is no secret that I have a cake tin addiction and no tins quite compare to bundt tins, in my opinion. I also am a total chocoholic (since Valentine’s day I’ve eaten more than I have in years, oops!) and have a soft spot for chocolate orange; it was my hot chocolate flavour of choice this winter. I guess you could say that chocolate orange is ‘in’ this season. I had oranges that needed using up and I’d been wanting to make a chocolate cake using raw cacao instead of standard cocoa powder, to see how it compared (favourably!), hence why when I spotted this recipe for chocolate orange bundt cake on Tux’s blog Brooklyn Homemaker, I was TOTALLY sold. I have confessed before and I will do so again, I don’t really like chocolate cake. I love cake and I love chocolate but when combined, usually I’m not a fan. When I say chocolate cake, I mean chocolate sponge, serve up a gooey winning hearts and mind cake and my whole year will be made. I did enjoy this cake though, it perhaps wasn’t the richest chocolate cake in the world (probably too rich for some kids but I like very rich chocolate cakes) but the dark chocolate chips and orange glaze combined with the ridiculously light and fluffy chocolate sponge was a magical combination. It’s an adapted recipe by Joy the Baker, so I knew it’d be a goody (definitely going to have to make the original soon too).

Ingredients: (Makes one 12 cup bundt cake, serves 12-16)

1.25 cups of orange juice (freshly squeezed from the oranges you zest – zest the first)
The zest of 3 large oranges
1/3 (heaped) cup of raw cacao powder (or 0.75 cup of good cocoa powder, such as Green & Blacks)
2.25 cups of sugar
1.25 tsp of salt
2 eggs
1 (additional) egg yolk
1.25 cups of buttermilk
1 cup of cold pressed rape seed oil (or other vegetable oil)
1.5 tsp of vanilla extract
2.25 cups of white spelt flour, sifted (or plain flour)
2 tsp of baking soda
1 cup of dark chocolate chips (or 150 g chopped dark chocolate)

For the glaze:

1.5 – 2 cups of icing sugar
0.25 cup of fresh orange juice
The zest of 1 orange

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Grease and flour your bundt tin. When using elaborate tins I place them in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes, before using a pastry brush and melted butter to grease them; that way you get an even covering over the whole tin and can grease those difficult to reach details.
If not using chips and you haven’t already, chop your dark chocolate.
Zest your oranges, place the zest of 3 in one small bowl and the zest of the fourth orange in a separate small bowl.
Juice your oranges and pour the juice into a jug, if you have less than 1.5 cups of juice, top it up with water until you do.
Place 0.25 cup of the orange juice in the bowl with the zest of one orange in it. Set aside.
Place the remaining 1.25 cups of orange juice into a small saucepan with the cacao powder, stir constantly over a medium heat until simmering and well mixed. Set aside and allow to come to room temperature.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together (with an electric whisk) the sugar and orange zest, until you have a beautiful pale orange sugar, like below (it was so gorgeous that I had to take a picture):
Whisk in the eggs and salt until fluffy.
Whisk in the buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract, mix until well combined.
Whisk in flour and baking powder.
Pour in the chocolate orange mixture and whisk until evenly distributed.
Fold in the chocolate chips/chunks.
Pour into the bundt tin and bake for 55-65 minutes. This is for a 12 cup bundt tin, I tried to fit it all into a 10 cup bundt tin and had a minor explosion in the oven. If your tin is a 10 cup bundt tin, fill the tin until you have just under an inch of space from the top of the cake mix to the top of the tin and pour the remaining cake mix into a small tin or make a couple of muffins.
Once cooked (when a skewer comes out clean), remove from the oven and leave the cake to cool in the tin for 20 minutes.
Place a cooling rack upside down on top of the tin, hold the two together and invert them. Leave the cake in the tin for a minute, then gently life the tin off of the cake.
Whilst the cake is cooling completely, make the glaze by whisking the icing sugar together with the zest of one orange and the 0.25 cup of orange juice you set aside earlier. Begin with 1 cup of icing sugar and keep adding until you reach the consistency you desire, its a personal choice, I like to be able to pour it so that it’d fill the indentations on the cake. Wait until the cake has cooled completely before pouring your icing/glaze over it. I recommend doing this with the cake still on the cooling rack and placing a plate beneath it, it can get messy.
Once you’ve glazed your cake, slice, serve and enjoy!