All of that melty chocolate has me salivating already! This isn’t just your ordinary chocolate and orange cake. It’s not some dry old boot that you’ve been offered a piece of at a party but you don’t reeeeally want to take… No. This is simple perfection. Because it is really simple! No really, I’m talking even if you’ve never made a cake before in your entire life, you can still make this cake. It really is that easy! Aaaaand the best part? You can almost kind of call it healthy.
Ok, ok well I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a superfood… But! There is a whole orange, rind and all in it. Plus not toooooo much sugar and it even has dates in it! If you’re a date hater like me though, don’t let that put you off though because you can’t even taste them. All you can taste is moist orange cakey goodness with allllll the melty chocolate. Mmm maybe not a health food then. But definitely health-ier than many other cake recipes that I have posted and really easy to make, because I thought you guys deserved something easy to add to your repertoire. This would be a really very excellent dessert for those times when you have unexpected guests for dinner, or if you really want to pull off a showstopper dessert but don’t have a lot of time. This cake, is for those occasions.
The recipe is based off one that can be found in the Whittaker’s Passion for Chocolate cookbook which I absolutely love looking at because it’s filled with… Chocolate. Yum! I have actually made this cake quite a few times already but every time I’ve made it, it just gets eaten before I can take any photos! Definitely a family favourite, right here. But this time I really wanted you guys to get some as well so I made sure all the photos were taken BEFORE everyone started eating the cake. So now you guys can have some too! If you don’t have a block of chocolate, or would prefer to use chocolate chips then you definitely can, you may just not get the dramatic oozing effect that big chunks of chocolate cause in this cake. But better to have cake with chocolate chips than no cake at all right? 😀
I hope you guys enjoy this cake as much as I always do, leave me a comment and let me know what you think of it. Also, something new and exciting is coming this week, so stay tuned for more baking fun! Happy baking!
- 115g (1/2 cup) butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 whole orange, washed and chopped into cubes
- 1 cup (160g/5.5oz) dates, chopped
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/2 tspn baking soda
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 tspn vanilla essence
- Pinch of salt
- 250g block of bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces (I used Whittaker’s 50% Bittersweet, totally the best!)
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease and line a 23cm (9 inch) round cake tin.
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- Place the cubed orange pieces in a blender or food processor with the dates, water and baking soda. Blend until there are no large lumps of orange.
- Add the orange mixture to the butter mixture and fold in the flour, vanilla and salt. Pour into the cake tin.
- Take your broken up pieces of chocolate and poke them into the cake mix.
- I did mine vertically and made rings of circles getting smaller towards the middle so that you get the awesome oozing chocolate in every slice.
- Smooth the cake batter over the chocolate and bake in the centre of the oven for 40-50 minutes.
- Leave the cake to cool slightly, then transfer to a serving plate or chopping board to slice and serve.
- This is best served with whipped cream or plain yoghurt, or if you really want to get fancy, add a little orange juice and zest to the runny cream then whip. Yum!
- It will also keep for 3-4 days stored either in an airtight container or wrapped in clingfilm. I can guarantee it will be gone before you can even get the container out though!
Pinned! Choc orange is my total fav flavour combo and this cake looks all kinds of lush #need
Hi!
Thanks for stopping by, I’m so glad you like the cake. 🙂 It truly is delicious, I love chocolate and orange too! Jaffas (chocolate covered in an orange shell) were my fav candy as a kid! 🙂
With the orange, you blend up the peel and all? Or just the orange flesh?
Hi Michelle
You blend it all up! I would definitely chop it up first so that the blender will actually crush it, but yup peel and all in together, pretty cool ae? 🙂 Hope you enjoy!
Have you tried making smaller cakes? I was thinking of making this recipe (I made it last week and it’s seriously the best cake I’ve ever tasted), but splitting it up into smaller pans for gifts. Any luck with this?
Hi Catherine
Thanks for the kind comments, isn’t it a fantastic recipe? It’s my go-to easy dessert! 🙂 I haven’t tried splitting it myself, but it should be fine. As a general rule, just make sure you bake the cakes on the same rack so that they bake evenly and you’ll probably have to reduce the cooking time by around 10 minutes. Let me know how they turn out! 🙂