If chocolate orange is irresistible then this cake will be the new favorite around the block. Orange cream filled layers with a dark chocolate on top. Yumm!

There is much happened since Terry’s first invented the chocolate orange in 1932. Apart from a World War in 1939 that shut the company down for airplane parts production, of course.

Just imagine life without chocolate orange for six years. It must have been excruciating but probably this wasn’t the biggest problem of those in the concentration camps across Europe.

Not like chocolate orange were popular in mainland Europe as it was invented in the United Kingdom and stayed there until some importers thought, it was a good idea to introduce them to the grateful North-American consumers.

And indeed, people in the United States of America fell for this orange looking thing that tastes somewhat orange but more chocolatey.

During the years Terry’s, the company tried with various success selling more of their most successful product by making spinoffs like orange bars, orange Easter eggs or orange chocolate pieces in a bag. They ended up selling themselves for Kraft.

Luckily Mondelez Inc. that is Kraft new name, kept Terry’s chocolate orange alive during the years but didn’t have time to spread it across the globe. So, if we are anywhere on the globe where English is not spoken, we have to have a very good friend with access to chocolate oranges and good shipping services to get our hands on one, once in a while.

We are also out of luck if we jumped on the bandwagon of sugar-is-bad-for-us-thus-we-don’t-put-that-thing-into-our-body. We could mention the low carb dieters here too but this recipe won’t be low carb (although it could be using low carb cake base like almond cake) so it’s better just skips this topic forward unnoticed.

This recipe won’t be about chocolate though. Making orange flavored chocolate wouldn’t be a big deal anyway. Anyone can melt chocolate and add a bit of orange flavor to it. Not like making a chocolate orange cake would be a great challenge but it shouldn’t be anyone’s first cake.

Especially not the first cake made for a birthday party.

Although, it uses a simple chocolate sponge cake as a base sponge cakes have the reputation of being treacherous. It’s a bit like gardening. Someone has green thumb others brown. It could be learnt but that takes practice and tenacity.

Luckily there is a happy life for cakes that aren’t lived up to our expectations.

A bit of mastery also required on the icing as getting the right consistency with the ingredients we have in our kitchen is sometimes challenging.

Nothing worse than after a sweaty baking, precisely cutting the cake up to equal layers and painfully measuring the cream to fill spread through the layers only to ruin the whole cake with too thick or too thin icing.

Well, it will still be edible of course but too thick icing will result in uneven top that does not always give the desirable result while too thin icing will not provide enough counterbalance to the orange cream in among the layers.

So, if a choice presents itself then go with a thicker chocolate icing as that will harmonize or rather counterbalance the cream exactly like it is done in Terry’s chocolate orange.

Well, to be honest this cake is even better than that. Fluffy cake with orange flavored cream that melts away with the harsh chocolate layer at every bite.

Ingredients:

Base:

4 medium Eggs
2 tablespoon Sweetener of choice (optional)
⅔ cup / 150ml Orange juice
1 cup / 120g Flour
2 tablespoon Cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1 teaspoon Baking powder (check instruction on packaging)

Filling:

3 medium Orange
½ cup / 100ml Water
⅞ cup / 200ml Heavy cream
⅞ cup / 200ml Whole milk
3 Egg yolks
1 tablespoon Cornstarch
1 tablespoon Agave syrup or sweetener of choice
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

Topping:

3½ oz / 100g Chocolate
½ cup / 100ml Double cream
1½ tablespoon / 20g Butter (unsalted)
Orange peel for decoration (Optional)

How to make Chocolate orange cake:

Base:

Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C.
Separate egg whites from the yolks one by one. Put them in two different medium sized bowls to beat them.
Measure flour. Put the unsweetened cocoa powder and the baking powder into the same measuring bowl and mix dry ingredients well.
Beat the egg whites on high speed until hard peaks form. At this stage, the tips of the egg whites will curl when the beaters are lifted. Peaks have to be stiff.
Beat yolk and sweetener of choice until it becomes light yellow.
Add dry ingredients bit by bit alternating it with the orange juice.
Fold the egg whites into flour yolk mixture. Use a wooden spoon or a spatula to cut vertically through the mixture. Move it around the bottom of the bowl bring it back up. Carrying some of the mixture from the bottom up to the surface.
Repeat it smoothly until ingredients are evenly combined.
Line a cake tray by using baking sheets or cover it with some butter and flour.
Spread the batter evenly into the prepared tray and put it into the 350°F / 180°C preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.

Filling:

Get the oranges and wash them well.
Dice them up and put the pieces into a pot to cook.
Pour water into the pot as well.
Put saucepan in the cooktop and bring it to boil.
Turn heat to low then cook oranges for half to one hour with the lid on.
Take it of the heat and let it cool down then puree it with a blender.
Continue with the other part of the cream: pour the milk and heavy cream in a pot on medium heat warm it up until it starts to bubble. Mind to stir it fairly often to avoid burning down.
Whilst the milk-cream reaching the boiling temperature; separate eggs and put away the whites for Floating islands or freeze it.
In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks for about a minute until light yellow and increased in volume.
Whisk in the cornstarch, vanilla extract, agave syrup and gradually about ½ cup of the hot milk-cream. The goal is to raise the temperature of the yolks so it won’t get curdled when added into the hot mixture.
Slowly pour all of the egg yolk mixture into the scalding milk-cream while stirring vigorously until the mixture seems completely liquified.
Keep warm and continuously stir until the custard thickens.
Mix it with the orange puree evenly.

Chocolate glaze:

Melt the chocolate, cocoa and the piece of butter.
Pour heavy cream into the saucepan with the chocolate bits.
Stir occasionally until melted chocolate is completely incorporated with the butter and whipped cream.
If cake base cooled down, cut it into four equal parts horizontally. Check out the cheap cake slicers in our Kitchen Bazaar at the Reviews. Pro tip: Use the top of the cake for Domino cake.
Divide the orange cream into three parts.
Spread the first part on the bottom layer of the cake then put the second layer on top.
Spread the second part of the cream on the second layer and the third layer on top.
Finish the same with the third part of the cream and the top layer of the cake.
Pour chocolate icing on top of the cake.
Decorate it with candied orange peel or just a simply fry the orange peels in oil for 5-10 minutes until get a slightly brownish color.
Put cake in the fridge for a couple of hours before cutting it up and serving it.