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

No hummingbirds were hurt in the making of this cake ...

This morning I decided to make a Hummingbird Cake - bizarre name for a cake which doesn't actually contain hummingbirds ;-)  no idea where the name originated from but I assume that as the cake contains things like pineapple and banana, hummingbirds would love the sweetness!

I love this cake for its ease of making, it freezes and is good with or without a glaze or frosting (to keep the calorie content down in case you are worried about such things but I find the cake very sweet without any added glaze or icing).  It is similar in texture to a carrot or passion cake and the banana and pineapple keep the cake lovely and moist and the walnuts add some crunch and texture. In fact you could almost say it is a healthy cake - all that fibre, fruit and protein and even the "fat" element is sunflower oil .... need I say more to convince you to give this a go?!

Hummingbird Cake

Ingredients

3 cups plain flour

2 cups caster sugar (you could use golden caster)

1 tsp Bi-carb of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 x 225g crushed pineapple, in natural juice

1 cup sunflower oil (or other neutral tasting oil)

3 large eggs, beaten

3 medium bananas, mashed roughly with a fork (roughly 270g)

1 cup small walnut pieces

1/2 tsp vanilla extract (not vanilla flavoured essence)

Optional Glaze

1 tbs unsalted butter, melted

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

2 tbs of the juice from the canned pineapple

Optional Cream Cheese Frosting

600g icing sugar, sifted

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature

250g cream cheese

Method

1. Preheat oven to 325F / 160C / Gas Mark 3. 
2. Generously grease or oil a 10" tube or a fluted tube pan. You can use a normal square tin but I find that means the cake takes longer to cook properly in the middle.
3. For the cake: in a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, bi-carb of soda, and salt. 
4. Next remove 2 tbs of juice from the can of pineapple and set this juice aside for the glaze if using.
5. Do not add the wet ingredients to the dry until you are ready to add them all at once, I find it easiest to prepare all the wet ingredients and have them all ready to just tip into the flour mixture.
6. To the flour mixture, add the can of pinapple, including the juice, the oil, beaten eggs, mashed banana, nuts, and vanilla. Fold and stir together till just blended but do not beat.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. 
8. Bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. 
9. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes then invert the cake onto a wire rack and remove the pan from the cake. 
10. Cool completely.

You can make a glaze or a cream cheese frosting, like the type you often get on carrot / passion cake.  I rarely bother with this step as I like the cake as it is but the choice is, of course, yours!

To make the optional glaze:

In a small bowl combine the melted butter with the icing sugar. Add enough of the reserved pineapple juice to make a glaze of drizzling consistancy. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake. 

For a glaze with a whole new dimension, try substituting rum for the pinapple juice.

To make the optional cream cheese frosting: 

Beat the icing sugar and butter together with an electric whisk until the mixture comes together and is well mixed. Add the cream cheese in one go and beat till completely incorporated. Continue to beat at a medium to high speed until the mix is fluffy and light, at least 5 mins.  Split the cake through the middle horizontally and spread some of the frosting into this middle layer and use the remainder to frost the top and sides of the cake if desired. 

This is an adaptation of a recipe I originally found on Big Oven, recipe ID 158449. The image of the glazed cake is from this website as well. The images below are my cake cooling.

Looks like the mice have been at the cake but was my fault for being impatient and being a bit gung-ho getting the cake turned out from its tin!

Hummingbird cake straight after being turned out, leaving to cool thoroughly before optional glaze or frosting.