I have just made a chocolate orange cake, from a recipe I'd not used before, as a birthday cake for DH. This was not a good idea.. When all the ingredients were in, in the right order (cream butter and sugar, add melted choc and orange zest/juice, add eggs then sift in flour and cocoa powder), the result was something akin to mortar... I could have built a highly calorific wall (note to self, buy Jamaican Ginger Cake slabs next time and experiment!) I think, with hindsight obviously, that there's too much cocoa powder in the recipe. Either that, or creaming softened butter produces a vastly smoother and more malleable result than merely creaming room temp butter, but I used a handheld mixer so should surely have made little difference? Can any experienced bakers help me, so I can roundly abuse the BBC website I got it from..?
Recipe is:
For the cake
50g/2oz good-quality dark chocolate
200g/7oz caster sugar
200g/7oz unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
2 oranges, zest only, plus juice of 1 orange
5 free-range eggs
200g/7oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
150g/5¼oz cocoa powder