Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake.......and an excuse for missing from blogsphere

I've been off from the blog sphere from almost last 3 weeks or so, my last post was on auto schedule. Thanks to those of you who stopped at Spicebuds to write down some wonderful words and also sorry for missing all those wonderful posts out there. Now reason for not being active here, it's not me being lazy but we decided on a little road trip of  940 miles in two days.......many days went into packing before the trip & unpacking is still going on, two vehicles, two adults, two kids, two days, start to finish 7 states covered.......
excitement of thinking back & writing about all this adventure made me forgot to mention that one vehicle was a U-haul.......I know, I know what all you guys are saying Oh!!!!! "moving" now the story is clear...."How possibly some one would take a adventure trip amidst all the snow storms we are getting this season here in USA" right? that's what U guys were thinking??? But believe me if I ever start a travel blog I'll have many such adventure trips to share(not related to moving at all)......but really Thankful to GOD, No Complaints at all, the days we were in the process of moving(loading, travelling & unloading) skies were clear and sunny, it was colddddd but clear skies.
Now coming to the recipe, no I didn't baked it for our trip but it was baked back in dec. for Teacher Appreciation Day in my 3rd grader's school. When I asked the event Organiser about any suggestions what to bake, she simply said for some reason teachers like anything with chocolate in it. So I decided to make Orange Chocolate Cake because I had some good oranges on hand. Google to the help and instantly decided on this recipe which is originally from Nigella Lawson, but as the ingredients were weighed in this recipe so started to do some calculations of mine & somewhere between that time again googled and found this recipe which again is from Nigella Lawson(yes, it's basically same recipe) but this second link gave the ingredients measured in spoons & cups, making my work little bit more easy. I did tweaked the recipe a little bit acc. to what I had in my pantry at that time and also reduced the quantity of butter. I used 9x5x3 inch loaf pan, recipe given is for one loaf, here goes the recipe :
What I used :
For Cake/Loaf
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 tablespoons honey
  • 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
  • 3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
  • 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour (used unbleached kind)
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup buttermilk at room temp.
  • 2 small oranges, zest of (1 tablespoon)
  • 1 small orange, juice of (3 tablespoons)
For Orange glaze :
  • 1/2 cup Confectioner sugar
  • 2 tablespoon Orange juice
What I did :
  1. Preheat oven to 325°. Grease 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, mix the butter, honey, syrup and sugar until smooth. I used electric mixer.
  3. Add egg & mix in.
  4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and cocoa powder.
  5. Mix around 2-3 tablespoon of the dry ingredients into the liquid mixture.
  6. Add half of the buttermilk and mix it.
  7. Add few more spoonfuls of dry ingredients and another round of mixing.
  8. Add rest of the buttermilk.
  9. Mix in remaining dry ingredients, mix everything together and now it's time for orange zest add it and lightly mix it.
  10. Finally at the end, add the orange juice.Pour batter into the prepared pan.
  11. Bake for 45 minutes or so.
  12. Leave it in the pan for a while, take it out on the wire rack to cool completely.
  13. Once the cake is cooled, make the glaze by mixing both ingredients to pourable consistency & drizzle it over the cake. If needed adjust the quantity of sugar and juice to get the consistency and taste U like. 
Note : I did made the same recipe without egg & it turned out good just replace egg with 1/4 cup buttermilk. Also baked this in the med. size bundt pan(6"), above recipe was perfect for two med. bundts, they are not only cute but perfect size for a small family. Did used a little extra cocoa powder in this and also choco. glaze to suit kids taste buds.....

18 comments:

Unknown said...

i love the chocolate orange combo..awesome..

sangeeta said...

You enjoyed a lot it seems . I am so glad you did as it makes me smile here:)

The orange chocolate cake is great for sure , i love any Nigella recipe and this one is so rich flavored.
Write about the travel in detail too...

Priya Suresh said...

Seems u guys had loads of fun..Loaf looks super delicious and yumm!love the orange flavour in bakes..

Rita said...

Welcome back to Blogland. Sounds like you really had a hectic time; not an easy task moving at this time of the year and with 2 kids; wow!
Love the look of that bundt cake; still on the lookout for a med. pan.
Take care.

? said...

You really seem to have had a hectic schedule!
Orange and Choclate always work for us!

Santosh Bangar said...

oranage and choclate cake nice combination

Hamaree Rasoi said...

Great combi of orange and chocolate. Seems you had a very long trip. Snaps are awesome!

Deepa
Hamaree Rasoi

Pavani said...

Chocolate orange cake looks delicious. Moving in this weather could be vicious. Glad to here that everything went smoothly for you.

Tina said...

Yummy combination....cake looks perfect...

Preety said...

wow looks like you had fun trip..love the trip pics too..

cake looks delicious

Bergamot said...

Love the cakes, chocolate and orange are my favourite combination.

jayasree said...

Love the choco-orange combo. Recently posted a cup cake of this combo. Liked the glaze.

aipi said...

Beautiful place n gorgeous pics..glad to see you back:)

The cake looks yum..citrus n chocolate combo is soooo good.i would really like to try out a slice now :)

US Masala

Spice said...

Thanks everyone, still surrounded by so many boxes....but your comments are enough to cheer me up....

Champa said...

Where have you been. I kind of missed reading your comments. This looks great.

Champa said...

I liked the hellow 1" of snow. I am here doing the opposite. I moved from no snow (Houston) to 6" snow (Philadelphia). I miss Houston so much. Everytime I have to shovel, I feel like going back.

Soumya..... said...

First time here, loved your space, this dish loks too cute n sweet, Happy following you!
http://entepachakalokam.blogspot.com

Raksha said...

wow, I just loved this cake. Looks great.

following u:

http://rakshaskitchen.blogspot.com