Orange Cake with Chocolate Icing

Quick and simple, this orange cake is a crowd pleaser. It's only one layer, and the fudgey chocolate icing is thick, so it's easy to pop a slice of in a lunchbox to cheer up the middle of your day, without needing to worry that you'll get icing all over the rest of your lunch. The orange gives it a nice zing, and everyone knows how well chocolate and orange go together. 

Orange Cake 

300g Plain Flour

2tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Salt

125g Unsalted Butter

200g Caster Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Average Orange (juice and zest)

1tsp Orange Essence (optional - how good is your orange?)

Chocolate Icing

200g Icing Sugar

20g Cocoa Powder

100g Unsalted Butter

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C, and grease and line your pan (shape is no matter, and size - well how deep do you want your cake?)

2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, butter, caster sugar and eggs, either by hand or with a mixer.

3. Zest your orange as finely as possible and add to the cake mixture.

4. Squeeze as much juice as possible out of the zested orange and into the cake mixture. Here I also added the orange essence, as my orange wasn't terribly juicy and I really wanted the flavour to come through, but if your orange would win a prize in an orange competition, then you probably won't need the essence.

  

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until a knife comes out of the middle of the cake clean. 

6. Allow the cake to cool, and in the meantime combine the ingredients for the icing until you have a smooth buttercream. When the cake is completely cool, spread the icing over the top, and enjoy!

Check out that crumb structure! Have you been baking this week?