I am a New England Patriots Fan!!! Not just a fan, but a FAN. So it is fitting that my first official blog post is the recipe for the New England Patriots cake I made for our small Super Bowl party tomorrow.
But I digress…This is really about the cake; the dark chocolate fudge cake with just the essence of orange. Chocolate and orange are such an amazing combination that I didn’t even know I enjoyed until number 1 daughter introduced me to those wonderful chocolate oranges that you smack on the counter. One velvety chocolate orange section and I was hooked.
I started making a (pretty good) orange fudge cake shortly after. People liked it, it was good. It just wasn’t OMG good. So I kept tweaking recipes and trying different things until I got it perfect.
This recipe is it…the perfectly dark chocolate cake with enough orange to compliment the chocolate, but not be overpowered by the dark chocolate. This cake has a tender crumb that is sturdy enough to use in a tiered cake.
As with any recipe, quality ingredients are essential. I know, I know that’s what everyone says about their recipes, “Mine is so much better because I only use the best ingredient” : )
Well, this is true. This recipe, unlike many chocolate cake recipes, used melted butter instead of oil. For many years, I was a firm believer that in order to get a moist chocolate cake, you had to use oil. The biggest problem with oil based cakes, is that they are a bit fragile in my opinion. I have had too many cakes crumble under the weight of a good buttercream, not to mention having to tell brides that chocolate cakes were a no go for fondant covered cakes. That is not fun!!
The next tricky ingredient in this cake is the cocoa powder. There is a lot of confusion over Dutch processed cocoa powder vs natural. Here is a great post written by Sally’s Baking Addiction that explains it wonderfully. Take a minute to read it, it is worth it.
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2015/08/26/baking-basics-dutch-process-natural-cocoa-powder/
In this recipe I use natural cocoa powder, Hershey’s to be precise. I have also used Ghirardelli and to my taste, both are great.
So, through trial and (a lot of) error, I now have my go to chocolate cake base.
The next piece of advise I can give you is invest in a kitchen scale. The old saying “Cooking is an art, Baking is a science” is 100% true. To get perfect results you need to have precise amounts of ingredients; and scaling them is the most precise method. BUY A SCALE, IT IS WORTH IT.
Okay, rant over. (But seriously, get a scale.) Back to our recipe. Once you have scaled out your ingredients it’s time to get mixing.
Start with our eggs and melted butter in the bowl of your stand mixer. Make sure your butter is not too hot, we don’t want scrambled eggs. Using the whisk attachment, whip on medium (#5 on Kitchen Aid mixer) for about 3 minutes to aerate the mixture.
Add in sugar and whisk another 3 minutes. Next mix in buttermilk and dry ingredients. Scrape down the sides on bottom of the mixer bowl and mix for another minute. Slowly pour in the hot coffee and whisk to combine, scraping the bowl to fully incorporate. Ignore the chocolate on the mixer head, I simply cannot work with cocoa powder without getting it everywhere.
This recipe will make a 9″ 3 layer cake. Now I absolutely detest torting cakes, I can never get them level, so I bake 3 separate layers. Voila, 3 beautiful cake layers and I don’t have a pile of cake crumbles and horribly thin cake layers.
Give these babies 23-27 minutes in a 350 oven, cool on a wire rack, fill, frost and decorate any way you like.
For this cake, I used a vanilla bean buttercream. But it is amazeballs with an orange scented Swiss Meringue buttercream.
I hope you enjoy this inKredible orange fudge cake.
inKredible Orange Fudge Cake
Makes a 9″ 3 layer cake
Ingredients:
- 382 grams pastry flour
- 180 grams natural cocoa powder
- 6 grams baking powder
- 6 grams baking soda
- 3 grams kosher salt
- 225 grams unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 4 eggs and 1 egg yolk
- 360 ml buttermilk, room temp
- 10 ml vanilla bean paste
- 675 grams granulated sugar
- zest of 2 oranges
- 360 ml brewed hot coffee
Procedure:
- Preheat oven to 350. Line 3 nine inch cake pans with parchment circles and spray with baking spray.
- Sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl, set aside.
- In bowl of stand mixer combine eggs and melted butter. Using whisk attachment, whisk on medium speed (5 on kitchen aid) for 3 minutes.
- Add in sugar and zest, whisk for another 3 minutes.
- Mix in buttermilk and dry ingredients. Mix to combine, scraping down sides of mixer bowl as needed.
- Slowly pour in hot coffee and mix to fully combine. Scrape sides of bowl and mix until batter has a smooth consistency.
- Pour 760 grams of batter into each prepared pan.
- Bake 22-27 minutes until tester comes out clean.
- Remove to rack to cool. After about 15 minutes, remove cakes from pan to cooling each.
- Once fully cool, fill and decorate.
- Enjoy
Lavender Box Bakery 