I made a cake this week - the first thing I have baked in months. I made an orange chocolate cake, also known as a jaffa cake, because it has a whole orange in it. I did it because I remembered making this cake or pudding years ago that had a whole boiled orange in the middle of it, and I wanted to make it again.
Sadly, I could not find the recipe, so I did the next best thing and looked one up and made it instead. It still had an orange in it, but not a complete one. You boil a whole orange for a while, then stick it in the blender (peel and all) and add that to the chocolate cake mix.
There were two problems with the cake. The first is that I got smart and used a blood orange, which is usually bloody hard to get, but I found some at the markets, and the second is that I used inferior cocoa.
Blood oranges, as I discovered, are not very sweet. If anything, they are a bit bitter, which is good if you like a nice, gutsy cake, and not a sweet, poofy confectionary thing. It would have been fine if I had used good cocoa, but the stuff that we had in the cupboard turned out to be bitter as well, so when you put the two together, you got a very bitter orange cake. If you are the sort of person that likes tart or bitter things, it would be perfect. I think it is good - maybe a 7 out of 10, as I don't like super sweet stuff. I like it to have a bit of an edge, but this thing has a whole lot of edge. I'm going to wait a bit and then do it again - with a normal orange.
The other thing that I might do is take out some of the cocoa and substitute melted cooking chocolate. We'll see. Anyway, the good thing about it is that it is impossible to eat a lot of it. One small bit is plenty, as more than that will just kill you. Although I paired it with poached plums tonight, and the sweet plums went very well with the bitter chocolate cake. I think I am on a winner here.
I can guarantee that very few people will ask for seconds.
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