Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake with Orange Liqueur Buttercream Frosting

Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake with Orange buttercream

I was requested by he who "ought to be obeyed" to make a chocolate orange cake with an orange buttercream icing.  Having recently bought Nigella Lawson's new cookery book "Kitchen, recipes from the heart of the home" I decided to give her recipe for Chocolate orange loaf cake a whirl and adapt slightly adding my own buttercream frosting as her recipe serves this cake plain and with "...just a hint of inner gunge..."

I cooked the cake a few minutes longer than instructed as I didn't want the pudding type "gunge" as she described if I was going to be frosting the cake and serving as a tea time treat rather than as a dessert cake. Otherwise I pretty well followed her recipe and used a standard buttercream frosting augmented with some orange zest and Grand Marnier liqueur - recipe added to the cake recipe below.  The cake itself is light and not overly sweet with just a hint of orange.  Adding the buttercream made the overall effect sweeter and more orangey.

For the cake:
150g soft, unsalted butter (plus a little extra for greasing)
2 x 15ml tbs golden syrup
175g dark muscovado sugar
150g plain flour
1/2tsp bicarb of soda
25g best quality cocoa powder, sifted (I used Green & Black's)
2 eggs
zest of 2 regular oranges and juice of 1

For the Orange Liqueur Buttercream Frosting:
125g unsalted butter, soft
250g icing sugar, sifted
zest of 1 orange
1 tbs Grand Marnier or other orange flavoured liqueur or orange juice

Preheat oven to 170C/ gas mark 3 and line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin (I just greased a silicon mould).

Beat the already soft butter with the syrup and then add the sugar and beat really well to get rid of the lumps of sugar until you get a coffee coloured fairly smooth airy mix (the sugar will still make the mix feel very slightly gritty)

Mix the sifted flour, bicarb and cocoa powder together lightly and beat 1 tbs of this into the butter and sugar mix then beat in 1 of the eggs and repeat with another big spoonful of the flour mix followed with the other egg.

Carry on beating the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and finally add the orange zest and slowly beat in the orange juice.

Pour and scrape mixture into the loaf tin/mould and bake for about 45mins (check after 40 mins) - if you want the cake to be slightly more of a dessert cake texture with a soft middle as Nigella's recipe calls for then 45 mins will be enough (note that a skewer inserted will not come out completely clean for this level of doneness and the middle of the loaf will sink a little on cooling).  I continued to cook the cake for another 5 mins.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for a while in the tin/mould before carefully turn ing out onto a rack to cool completely.

Dark chocolate cake with a hint of orange,
sandwiched and topped with a boozy orange buttercream sweet frosting

If using the icing - beat the soft butter and mix in the icing sugar beating well to incorporate. Add the zest and the liqueur or orange juice till well mixed in and the buttercream is light and fluffy.

When the cake is cold, slice through the middle horizontally and spread half the buttercream carefully over the bottom half and then replace the top half of the loaf and spread the remaining buttercream over the top.

Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home