Ingredients
- 1 Seville orange
- a little melted butter , for greasing
- 100g plain chocolate , broken into pieces
- 3 eggs
- 280g caster sugar
- 240ml sunflower oil
- 25g cocoa powder
- 250g plain flour
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- orange candied peel , to decorate
FOR THE CHOCOLATE GANACHE
- 200g plain chocolate , broken into pieces
- 225ml double cream
- Pierce the orange with a skewer (right through). Cook in boiling water for 30 minutes until soft. Whizz the whole orange in a food processor until smooth; let cool.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4/fan 160C.Grease and line the base of a 23cm/9in round cake tin. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave for 2 minutes on High, stirring after 1 minute. Let cool.
- In a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs, sugar and oil. Gradually beat in the puréed orange, discarding any pips, then stir in the cooled melted chocolate. Sift in the cocoa, flour and baking powder. Mix well and pour into the tin. Bake in the centre of the oven for 55 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed in the middle. (Check after 45 minutes and cover with foil if it is browning too much.) Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Make the chocolate ganache: put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to the boil and pour over the chocolate. Leave for 2 minutes, then stir until smooth. Set aside until firm enough to spread over the cake – up to 1½ hours.
- Transfer the cake to a serving plate. Using a palette knife, swirl the ganache over the top. Decorate with strips of candied orange peel.
being Vesak Day yesterday, of course we had a day off from work. sooo..long weekend here we come!
except that we are having a really long weekend. For some reason, I keep thinking that it’s Sunday today, and was sorta mentally prepared to go back to work tomorrow. -_-” Now I’m starting to think that the weekend is REALLY long.
anyhoos, we did work yesterday, despite it being a holiday. popped over to my mom’s to cook lunch and to try out this chocolate & orange cake recipe from the BBC Good Food magazine (UK). Sure did something very new, i.e., boiling an orange. I wasn’t sure how soft it should be, so did my best. The recipe asked for a Seville orange, but I substituted it with a Valencia orange. I found out that Seville oranges were used for marmalades too! Not that I’ve ever seen a Seville orange..nor know why in particular Seville oranges. Oh wells. So I boiled it, blizted the whole orange in the food processor, and poured all of it into the mix.
The cake came out nicely, and the smell of jaffa was awesome! When it was fresh out of the oven, it smelt like chocolate, with a hint of orange and then when you took a bite of it, there were orange pieces in it, and the citrusy taste just hits you. mmM. I didn’t have time to make the ganache. Took the advice of one of the people who commented that they used yoghurt instead of the double cream that the recipe asked for. A much healthier option!
I brought a camera along, but forgot to take a picture of the cake. DOH. Ah wells, maybe the next dessert then. haha. I baked the cake cos of a colleague who’s lost her sense of taste, has never tasted a chocolate orange anything, and can’t imagine it either. Here’s to hoping that she can smell this one out!
Ohoh, it was our virgin attempt at doing our marketing at the wet market too! haha. We were so ignorant of the prices that the vendors could probably have ripped us off. But it was cool, the prices sounded right (and sooo cheap!!). Lunch cost us about S$10 for 4 people! and we still had leftovers. I reckon we would have saved about over S$10 shopping at the wet market as compared to shopping at the supermarket. Far out!
After all the cooking and baking at my parents’, we popped over to Donald’s grandparents place, since they lived nearby. And then the hardcore work began. Cos they were elderly, and cleaning was probably difficult for them, Donald and I thought we’d go over and give the place a decent scrub down. It was hard work, but soooo satisfying at the end of it all. =P Donald was sweating buckets, and disgustingly wet at the end of it all. Thank goodness for gloves man. I squished a fair few baby cockroaches. URRRRRGGGH. I think it took us an hour, cos we started when Little Nonya on Channel 8 started, and was almost done when it ended. haha, Donald’s gramps turned the tv off when it started, and we were like noooo, leave it on. I think it was an episode that we missed too.
Came home, showered and went out for a good meal. We were so hungry, and my man needed meat, which he didn’t get in the end. =P We ended up having sushi and not eating alot of it. You know the kind of feeling you get when you are hungry, everything sounds nice, and when you actually eat it, it wasn’t as good as how you envisioned it to be? Yar, that was it. Anyways, I didn’t even have any appetite for my Horlicks McFlurry from Maccas, which I was dying to try. =( Another day perhaps.
Gave the boys their spot on worming treatments today without any dramas, which was surprising! Usually Thomas is the docile one, and Marcus is ferocious when you grab him to give him the treatment. I reckon it’s got something to do with the scratching post. They scratch it, and when they are on one of the platforms, we give them a scratch. So maybe they don’t feel so threatened. Hmm.. Marcus did have a ‘I’ve-been-betrayed’ look on his face though. haha Too bad. =P
Off to do abit of a clean up today in my room. Bleh. I’ve got too much unorganised paperwork on the table, both from Australia and Singapore. And I think I need to repack my wardrobe too. I don’t have enough wardrobe space! And it’s not cos I’ve got too much clothes okay. I need more clothes if anything. *grumbles*
