Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake

Nothing like a happy chocolate-y orange-y and super rich-y cake moment to cheer up the day. Never mind the calories – they are all worthwhile.

Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake (adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Kitchen)

Ingredients

• 160g of soft unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 250g raw cane sugar
• 120g of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
• 2 eggs
• the zest of 2 regular orange and juice of 1 (1/3 cup)

Method

Preheat the oven to 165oC.

Line the loaf pan with parchment paper and grease the sides.

Beat the already soft butter with the syrup and the sugar until you have a fairly smooth cream (you probably will still feel a bit of grit; should look like a large weak coffee with milk).

Mix the flour, baking soda, and cocoa powder together.  Sift the equivalent of a 1 tablespoonful of these dry ingredients into the sugar and butter. Mix well before beating in 1 egg. Then add another couple of spoonfuls of the dry ingredients before beating in the second egg.

Carry on beating in the remaining dry ingredients and then add, still beating, the orange zest and finally, gradually, the orange juice. At this stage, the batter may suddenly look dimpled, as if slightly curdled – if this happens, do not worry.

Pour and scrape the batter into the load pan and put in the stove for 45 minute. Test with a knife before taking it out.  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 stickiness. Let cool a little in its pan on a wire rack, then turn out with care and leave on the rack to cool.