Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake

A Nigella Lawson recipe, this chocolate orange loaf cake had been tried by many bloggers and all of them agreed that this recipe is for keeps.   This cake is moist, soft  and full of orangy flavour which is  befitting for breakfast or for tea.  To give it a facelift, I just sprinkled some Demerara sugar on top.

Recipe for Chocolate Orange Loaf cake  (adapted from  Anncoojournal )

Ingredients

• 160 gm soft butter
• 2 Tbsp golden syrup
• 70 gm brown sugar
• 115 gm plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3 Tbsp Valrhona cocoa powder
• 2 eggs
• 60 ml orange juice
• Zest from 2 oranges

Method

1. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper, set aside.
2. Sift the plain flour with baking powder and cocoa powder, mix well.
3. Beat butter with the syrup and sugar until you have a fairly smooth caffe Americano cream, though the sugar will have a bit of grit about it.
4. Add 1 tablespoonful of flour mixture before beating an egg.  Then add another couple of spoonfuls of the flour mixture before beating in the second egg.
5. Carry on beating in the remaining flour mixture and then add, still beating, the orange zest and finally, gradually, the juice. At this stage, the batter may suddenly look dimpled, as if slightly curdled. No need to panic!
6. Pour and scrape into the prepared pan and bake in a preheated oven @ 325 deg.F/165 deg.C  for 45 minutes, though check 5 minutes before and be prepared to keep it in the oven 5 minutes longer if need be. 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.
   
   

 I'm linking this post to the Little Thumbs Up event, theme for this month is 'Orange', organised by

Zoe of  Bake for Happy Kids. and  Doreen of  My Little Favourite DIY

and hosted by  Ann of  Anncoojournal