Chocolate Orange Heaven

I was never a huge fan of chocolate cake but this... this recipe has me converted. One of my chief cake testers texted me to say they had to hide the cake to prevent themselves from just mashing through the whole thing in a manner reminiscent of Bruce in Matilda! The classic blend of chocolate and orange is always going to be a winner while the addition of a marmalade filling has this tasting like someone blended a chocolate orange with jaffa cakes... Bliss. Try it out, you know you want to.

Ingredients:

For the cake:
6oz self raising flour
6oz caster sugar
6oz butter
3 eggs
1tsp baking powder
3 overly heaped tbsp cocoa powder
zest of 1 large orange

For the icing: 
Juice of half an orange
6oz icing sugar
2oz butter

Added extras:
Marmalade for the filling - I used thin cut
bar of dark chocolate to grate over the top

Method:

Preheat your oven to 160 fan (180 non fan) for around 15 minutes. While the oven heats up place all the cake ingredients in a large bowl or mixer and beat until it becomes smooth, glossy and light to the touch. Liberally grease a couple of 20cm round cake tins and spoon half the cake mix into each. Smooth the mixture down with a spatula and pop in the oven. Bake for around 15-20 minutes until a knife comes out clean and the cakes are starting to pull away from the sides of the tins. Place on a cooling rack and leave in the tins for a few minutes before carefully turning the cakes out. I like to run a spatula round the edge of the tin to ensure the cake is free the carefully jiggle the tin to loosen the cake from the base. If the cake is fully baked and the tin was well greased, the cake should easily come free with very little residue left making washing up very easy!

Leave the cakes to cool completely if possible (I know the smell is almost irresistible) then make up the icing by mixing all the ingredients until they reach the consistency of loosely whipped cream.

Place one of the cakes on your choice of display stand and slather generously with marmalade. Carefully pop the other cake on top and coat liberally with the icing. I then grated dark chocolate over the top to decorate and to counterbalance the sweetness of the icing.

The use of only natural orange in this recipe ensures its not an overpowering flavour but if your oranges are a bit lacklustre a drop of orange extract could easily be used to help.

I know everyone will love this cake so please give it a try and let me know what you think. I also made this entirely dairy free with Pure 'butter' and I am sure this recipe would work well using gluten free flour and baking powder.