Easy Chocolate Orange Cake

When I was at school the first all-in-one cake I ever made was called Lemon Crisp. So I thought I would re-invent the cake today by adding cocoa and changing the lemon juice for orange juice to make Easy Chocolate Orange Cake. After suffering the day from hell; having the car pebble dashed by a digger on a building site and then having the car dented by a runaway shopping trolley 2 minutes later, my children and I were happy to sit down with a cup of tea and a slice of cake at the end of a horrendous day! Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice?

A friend of mine from Australia recently e-mailed me to say that my blog looked great but it was too bad that she couldn’t cook.  Well this one’s for you Julie, no skill required, just reading and whisking!

This cake would be the ideal cake for children to make for Father’s Day and would also be great for a school cake bake.  It stays really moist and  tastes just a good on day 3 as it does on day 1.

I never fail to get excited when I see a bowl of ingredients  like this ….

turn into this…

and after a sugar orange glaze, this.

After all the excitement of the day I forgot to cut the cake up into 3 rows of 4 slices for the photo but you could do it how you like!

I do hope you try my easy all-in-one cake but for more easy cake inspiration you might like:

Easy Iced Lime Cake

Easy Ginger Avocado Cake with Lemon Drizzle

Vegan Banana Cake

Spelt Banana Bread

Spiced Apple & Ginger Cake

Birthday Cake (All-in-One Vanilla Sponge)

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Easy Chocolate Orange Cake

Easy Chocolate Orange Cake - all in one chocolate cake moistened with orange juice with a crispy sugar topping.

Course Snack

Cuisine British

Keyword cake, Chocolate, orange

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Servings 12

Author Camilla

Ingredients

• 175 g / 6oz Margarine or butter softened
• 175 g / 6oz Caster sugar
• 160 g Self-raising flour
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 15 g Bourneville cocoa powder
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp milk
• Orange sugar topping:
• 50 g / 2oz Caster sugar
• 2 dsp Orange juice freshly squeezed

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Grease and line a 23 x 23cm 9” x 9” baking tin.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk for a couple of minutes with an electric mixer or 3 minutes with a whisk.
5. Bake for 40 minutes or until the cake is springy to the touch.
6. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack.
7. Mix together the orange juice and caster sugar and spread over the top of the cake.
8. When the topping has set cut the cake into 12 slices.

Recipe Notes

For the original Lemon Crisp version use 175g self-raising flour and leave out the cocoa. Then for the topping use lemon juice instead of orange juice.