Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake

 

I wanted to share this recipe I found in a copy of sBetter Homes and Gardens that was lying around the house for a Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake courtesy of Nigella Lawson (if you, like me before last year, haven't heard of her, she's HUGE over in the UK). You'll need these ingredients:

-1 1/4 sticks (or 10 TBS) unsalted butter, softened
-2 TBS golden syrup (such as Lyle's) or dark corn syrup (this is what I used as golden syrup is more of a British thing - Karo sells one*)
-1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
-1 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-3 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder, shifted
-2 eggs
-zest of 2 small orange (1 TBS which is pretty much equivalent to the zest of one normal orange) and juice of one small orange (3 TBSP - you'll have plenty if you juice a normal orange)

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Line a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan with parchment paper (I've only met people in the UK who use parchment paper. My flatmates used to use it all the time when making brownies or cakes but I've never used it. I just sprayed my tin with Pam for baking). Grease sides of pan or line with a paper loaf-pan liner (again, I just Pamed it).
2. In a large bowl, with electric mixer, beat the butter, syrup (brush a little oil on your tablespoon measure before measuring the syrup to help remove it from the spoon), and sugar until fairly smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Beat 1 tablespoon of the dry ingredients into the syrup mixture, then beat in one egg. Add another couple of spoonfuls of dry ingredients before beating in the remaining egg.
4. Beat in remaining dry ingredients, and then add, while still beating, the orange zest. Gradually add the juice. the batter many look slightly curdled.

 

5. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes (edges should look dry and center of cake may have dipped slightly - it took about 10 extra minutes for my knife to come out clean). Cool in pan on wire rack. Carefully remove from pan and cool completely.

 

Here's the finished product with a little powdered sugar!

*My comments are in italics

To be honest, I thought the cake was pretty good but not amazing. I'm a pretty harsh judge of my baking skills but my dad liked it so much he ate about a quarter of the loaf in one sitting and my mom really liked it too! Maybe I'm just judging myself too hard?

I'm sharing this recipe at...