Orange Cake with Chocolate Ganache

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It’s Christmas Eve and even
Mumbai has a bit of a nip in the air, albeit only in the nights and early
mornings. Right now I’m looking forward to spending Christmas and bringing in the New Year in Bangalore and
Coorg. But before I leave for my holiday, here is another festive baking recipe for you. I
baked this for my dad’s birthday yesterday and it was a hit! I admit that I’m a
bit obsessed with oranges these days, but this time I decided to add a
chocolate ganache as well.

I also used up the poaching
syrup left over from the last orange cake (see my Spiced Orange Upside-down
Cake recipe here); I had refrigerated it and it’s kept pretty well for two
weeks. So here’s my Orange Cake with Chocolate Ganache.

This recipe makes one 22cm
Cake

You’ll need:

4 Eggs
200g Flour
200g Butter (I use salted
butter)
200g Caster Sugar
2 Vanilla Beans, scraped
2tsp Baking Powder
50ml Orange poaching syrup
(see earlier post for recipe. You can try adding some orange marmalade instead.)
Zest of one Orange

Poaching Syrup

How to:

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Grease a 22cm cake tin and set aside.
Sift together the flour and
baking powder. If you’re using unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt to the dry
mixture.
Beat the butter and sugar
together.
Add eggs one at a time,
beating well after each addition.

Add the vanilla extract,
orange zest and orange poaching syrup. Mix well.
Add the dry mixture 1/3rd
at a time and mix well using the cut and fold technique. Be sure to stir only
in one direction else the cake might turn out wonky.
Pour the batter in the cake
tin and bake for 40-45 minutes, or till a knife inserted in the centre comes
out clean.
Remove and allow to cool
completely.

Slice horizontally to get two
layers of the cake.

Spread the ganache (recipe
follows) on the bottom layer.

Place the top layer on it and coat the cake
completely with the ganache.
Let it stand for about an hour
and then slice, share and enjoy!

Cake is ready to be packed for the party!

Chocolate Ganache

This is a recipe for a basic
ganache and you just need two ingredients. For this cake, I used an
orange-flavoured chocolate to go with the flavour of the cake. You can also add
about 10ml of liqueur (Cointreau will work beautifully with this cake) or rum
or brandy to the ganache to spice things up!

You’ll need:

200ml Cream
200g Chocolate

How to:

Chop up the chocolate and melt
it in a bain-marie (double boiler technique).
In a thick-bottomed pot, heat
the cream and bring it just to boil. Do NOT let it boil.
Pour the cream over the melted
chocolate and mix well to get a silky smooth ganache.
Use as it is or add a dash of
liqueur.

I hope you try this cake and
enjoy it as much as I did. My next post will most likely be published in 2013. So see you on the other side 🙂 Happy Holidays!