Mum’s Chocolate Orange Sponge Cake

I’m not really a “cake” person. I generally prefer, brownies or cookies over a piece of cake, but this is a particularly special sponge, one I thought really should be shared!

So here is my mum’s recipe for a three tier, indulgent, chocolate orange cake.

I will let you in to my mums little secret for a good sponge – weigh your eggs in their shells and use the same amount of flour, sugar and butter. E.g if your eggs weigh 250 grams use 250 grams of flour, 250 grams of sugar and 250 grams of butter.

Begin by setting your oven to 180 degrees Celsius (or 356 degrees Fahrenheit)

Ingredients

We used 4 eggs which weighed 300g

250g of self raising flour

50g of cocoa powder

30g melted chocolate (for added chocolatey goodness)

Rind from 1 whole orange

Juice from 2 large oranges (or 3 medium)

300g Stork or unsalted softened butter. My mum always says Stork is best.

150g golden granulated sugar

150g caster sugar

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 tsp baking powder

N.B Our eggs all turned out to be double yolks so we only used 3 eggs in the end.. Which weighed more like 250g. If your eggs are single yolks still use 4 of them.

Directions

Grease three 7.5 inch cake tins with some Stork or butter and line with baking paper. You could also use 8inch tins.

Combine the stork and sugar in a bowl and mix until creamy.

Grate in rind of orange (excuse the terrible nails!)

Sieve in the cocoa powder and mix together.

Add juice of 2 large oranges and stir until combined and smooth.

Add in your eggs and mix.

In a separate bowl combine flour, bicarbonate and baking powder. Then sieve this into the chocolate orange mixture.

Then melt your chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Any chocolate you can get your hands on will be fine. Then add in to the mixture.

Once all nice and smooth divide the mixture evenly into your greased cake tins and give each tin a drop a few times on a hard surface to release any air.

Put all three tins in the oven and bake for 25-30mins.

Filling

175g icing sugar

115g softened unsalted butter (or stork)

Few drops of vanilla essence

100g melted dark chocolate

Juice and rind from half a large orange

2 tsps triple sec or any orange liqueur.

Cocoa powder (to your own taste)

Directions

Beat butter until soft and creamy. Whisk in half the icing sugar and then add remaining icing sugar along with a few drops of vanilla essence.

Melt the chocolate and whisk in to you butter/icing sugar mixture.

Grate in rind of half orange and add the juice bit by bit – tasting as you go along.

After I had added about a third of the juice I thought it needed more chocolate flavour so bit by bit I added cocoa powder until I was happy. I then added two and a half teaspoons of triple to give it that added bit of orange oomph!

Another bit of coca powder and the remaining orange juice and the filling to me was just right.

I think tasting as you go is crucial to getting the perfect filling. Not everyone will want it as strong as I like it. Some may want more chocolate and some more want more orange.

Once the filling is to your liking, put the bottom cake layer on a plate and spoon over some filling, I used a spatch to smooth it over.