chocolate marmalade cake

chocolate marmalade cake

• 29 Jun 2020

I started seeing pictures of Nigella Lawson's Pantry Shelf Chocolate Orange Cake on instagram a few weeks ago. The recipe is an old one from her book 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' which I found online. I noticed quite a few people had either reduced the sugar content in the cake recipe or left the sugar out completely. I decided to make my own version in which I reduced the amount of sugar and also added a bit of cocoa to the mixture because can you ever have too much chocolate?



The original recipe was for a melt and mix cake but I really don't like the texture of cakes made this way so I decided to cream the butter and sugar first. It's one extra step but I think its worth it. 




Although I had a little bit of blood orange marmalade in the cupboard, I used the marmalade mandarin I had in the pantry. 



Here's the recipe for you, which makes a small bundt cake. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60 g eggs. My oven is a conventional oven so if you have a fan-forced oven you may need to reduce the temperature by 20ºC. If you'd like to make a larger cake, try this recipe which is almost identical to Nigella's recipe.



Chocolate Marmalade Cake
Ingredients
200g marmalade
65g dark chocolate, chopped
100g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1½ tbs dark cocoa powder
90g butter
2 tbs caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Topping (optional)
50 mls cream
50 dark chocolate, finely chopped
Candied orange or mandarin peel

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a small bundt tin and dust with cocoa powder then place in the fridge until needed.

Place the marmalade in a small bowl and heat in the microwave for a minute or until warmed. You can also warm the marmalade in a small saucepan on the stove. Add the chopped chocolate and mix until melted then set aside to cool for 10 minutes. 

Sift the flour, cocoa and salt into a small bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the butter with the sugar until the colour has lightened; then add the eggs one at a time until well combined. Mix in a third of the flour mixture followed by the marmalade and continue in this way to form a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the prepared tin, smooth the top then bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 45 minutes or until tests cooked when tested with a skewer. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before unmoulding. If decorating with the topping, allow the cake to cool completely.



Topping
Heat the cream until just begins to simmer. Take off heat and pour over chocolate. Leave to sit for a couple of minutes and then stir until all the chocolate has melted. Set aside for a while to cool and thicken slightly then drizzle over the cooled cake. Allow to set a little before decorating with the candied peel if using.



The end result is a pleasingly citrus scented chocolate cake which I still found plenty sweet even when I'd reduced the sugar. if I were to make the cake again I'd use a bit more butter and a little more chocolate as well to make the cake a bit more luxe.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian