It’s winter, and you know what that means – citrus season! Whether you prefer navel oranges, grapefruit, blood oranges, or lemons, the freshness and zestiness (ha!) of winter citrus is unbeatable. One of our favorite flavor combinations of all time is chocolate and orange. We understand that this may be controversial for some, but we can’t understand why. Once you find the right balance between the richness of the chocolate and the sharpness of the orange, the combination is just sheer perfection!
This isn’t exclusively a Scandinavian or Danish cake – oops – but it is a delicious and comforting dessert for the colder weather! So, in that sense, it could potentially be a Scandinavian recipe. Plus, one of our favorite Danish baking cookbooks has a recipe for a similar cake, so we are going to claim that it’s Scandinavian 🙂
The recipe itself is straightforward. The base recipe is for pound cake, so the ratio of sugar to butter, egg, and flour/cocoa powder is all 1:1. Then, of course, we have added various ingredients for flavor – vanilla extract, orange zest, and salt. We added sour cream for moistness, and baking powder as the leavening agent. The final product is a moist cake with an even crumb and slightly dense texture, full of delicious chocolate-orange flavor.
Pay close attention to your mixing method, as this will dictate the final texture of your cake. Make sure to beat your sugar and butter together for at least 5 minutes, until super fluffy. Then, make sure all your ingredients are room temperature, so that the batter doesn’t split. Alternate adding your dry ingredients and sour cream, making sure they are well-incorporated. Finally, don’t overbake it! This will give you more of a dry and crumbly cake, which is not what you want. But even if you make a mistake, it will still be delicious, and could always be used to make romkugler!
Sohla El-Waylly’s recipe for pound cake was really helpful as we were developing this recipe! She gives great tips for how to bake a fool-proof pound cake no matter what flavor or variation you like. We actually ended up adding sour cream because we wanted a more moist final cake, and she recommended it! So, we would definitely suggest checking out her recipe (as well as the YouTube video!) for more guidance.
Chokoladekage med appelsin (Chocolate-Orange Cake)
Ingredients
CAKE BATTER
- 200 grams (1 cup) sugar
- 200 grams (14 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
- Zest from 2 medium-sized oranges
- 120 grams (1/2 cup) sour cream, room temperature
- 120 grams (1 cup) all-purpose flour
- 80 grams (1 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
DECORATION
- 113 grams chopped chocolate
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) heavy cream
- Pinch of salt
- Candied orange slices
Instructions
- If you want to make candied orange slices, we would suggest making them ahead of time. They're pretty simple, but if you're looking for specifics, this recipe is a good one!
- Preheat your oven to 325 F (160 C). Butter a loaf pan or line with parchment paper.
- Add your room temperature butter and sugar to a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and beat together until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Make sure to scrape down the sides every once in a while.
- Add in your room temperature eggs one at a time. Mix well after adding each egg! It's important that they are room temperature or your batter may split and look lumpy. If you find that it still splits, keep mixing for a bit longer. Don't worry too much if it stays lumpy, as adding dry ingredients later will help bind the batter together.
- Once your eggs have been incorporated, add the vanilla extract and orange zest and mix. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients – cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Sift in half of the dry ingredients and mix together until just incorporated. Then add half of your room temperature sour cream and mix until incorporated. Sift in the remaining dry ingredients, mix, then add the remaining sour cream. Once incorporated, give the mixture a few folds with a spatula to make sure everything from the bottom has been mixed. (Note: Your batter shouldn’t look split/curdled at this stage. If it does, it may affect the texture of the final cake. Of course, you can still bake it and see what happens!)
- Add your batter to the loaf pan. Don’t worry if it doesn’t seem like enough – it will rise!
- Bake for 45-55 mins or until a cake tester comes out clean. Check it at 45 – you don’t want to overbake it! Let cool completely before cutting into the cake.
- For the decoration: Make chocolate ganache by heating your cream until just below boiling. Pour the cream over your chopped chocolate and stir gently until the chocolate has melted. Leave to cool at room temperature or put it in the fridge to set up faster! If you find that it is too solid from the fridge, put it in the microwave for just a few seconds at a time until you can stir it again.
- Once your cake has fully cooled, top with ganache and candied orange slices! Enjoy!
