food hits and misses

Another family birthday, another cake to make. This one for little bloke's favourite uncle. He requested a jaffa cake, but I'm a bit over chocolate at the moment, so decided to emphasise the orange instead. The end result has the chocolate and orange flavours, without giving anyone a cocoa overdose.

Chocolate orange cake

Cake

6 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
2 oranges - juice and zest
3/4 cup butter
3 cups SR flour

Orange syrup

1 orange, juiced
4 tbspn caster sugar

Ganache

2 cups cream
700g dark chocolate
1 tspn orange essence

Method

Preheat oven to 180 Celsius. Grease and flour 2 x 20 cm sandwich pans. Beat eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy. Melt the butter and allow to cool, before mixing in orange juice and zest. Slowly add to egg mixture, mixing and low speed. Sift flour and gradually add to cake mixture. Pour into prepared pans and bake 25 - 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly before turning out on to cake rack. Meanwhile, mix sugar and juice together over low heat. Bring to simmering point, stirring to prevent burning. Set aside to cool. Add orange essence to cream and heat slowly. Add chocolate and stir until smooth. Allow to cool and thicken. To assemble, brush both cakes with orange syrup. Sandwich with ganache, and top with remaining ganache.