baking experiment

Chocolate Orange loaf cake with Orange Icing.

This is really rather nice, easy to make and with an intriguing moist texture that I love and Mr. Stripey Cat describes as undercooked. It's a thing we have.

Anyway, although this makes a lovely cake and would be fine for a party (there's rather a lot of it, the picture only shows half) my intention is to use this basic cake to create some rather more exotic dessert or pudding. Thinking caps on.

I wasn't going to give the recipe out yet, I've only made this the once and it's very much a work in progress but two requests within an hour without even tasting it has to be an all time record for me and I'm flattered, so here it is. Don't blame me if it all goes horribly wrong!

Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake

This makes a huge cake. My loaf tin is 27cm x 9cm by 6cm high, with a volume of 2.5 pints and this fills it to the brim. Oil the tin and line it with a sheet of parchment paper. Let the paper be taller than the tin. Preheat the oven to, well, on my dial it's about 165C but I have no faith in my oven thermostat and wanted to check this another time. Whatever, but don't make it too hot. I always weigh my oils.

Ingredients:

500ml coconut milk - make this with a can and add water to bring it to the required quantity.
180g light vegetable oil, I used rape (canola) but sunflower would be fine.
Zest and juice of two large oranges.

400g white flour (I'm sure a fine wholemeal would work)
220g sugar (I used golden granulated, but soft brown will be o.k.)
50g cocoa powder
12g baking powder (about two teaspoons)
A pinch of salt if you use it.

Mix the liquids together and then add the dry ingredients. Beat until well incorporated. Pour, and it is very wet, into the lined tin and cook in the centre of the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes. The top will rise and crack a little. Check it with a tootpick or skewer to make sure it's not still liquid before you get it out.

Cool in the tin for 20 minutes or so and then turn out onto its top (i.e upside down) to cool completely. Remove the paper as it comes out of the tin.

To glaze, you'll need (and I'm guessing because I ended up using tons) about 300g of icing sugar, the zest of another orange and some juice. Add the juice teaspoonful by teaspoonful until the icing is just right and then coat the cooled cake. You might need to do this on a rack so the drips can fall off underneath. Decorate at will.