Blood Orange and Chocolate Torte

Chocolate and orange is without a doubt one of my very favourite combinations... in fact this isn't my first dessert post dedicated to this delectable flavour marriage.

And oranges are of course everywhere at the moment, I have been absolutely loving and craving blood oranges in the last week. I think that I must have subconsciously honed in on their seasonality or something because I just can't get enough. Which explains why I slightly overbought on my most recent trip to the supermarché (and by slightly I mean, I got over excited and brought three bags).

Even I can't get through that much orange without a serious sugar crash, so what do I do? Make a cake to ensure that I definitely have that sugar overload... whoops. Completely delicious though and you won't find any apologies coming from this direction.

This particular orange cake is completely gluten free, makes an excellent tea time treat or dessert and also involves only 5-10 minutes of prep time. It's an absolute winner and I implore you to give it a try.

Blood Orange and Chocolate Torte 
Serves 8 -10 

2 large or 3 medium sized blood oranges (this absolutely works with normal ones too)
200g ground almonds
200g caster sugar
100g dark chocolate (the bitterness of 85% works really well here but 70% is fine too)
6 medium eggs
1 tsp baking powder

First, halve your oranges around their equator and take out any pips. Pop them in a steamer basket or if you don't have one a colander ever a pan of boiling water will do just fine. Steam them for 30 minutes.

When they are done, whizz them up in a food processor until almost smooth (a few small chunks is fine and adds a lovely texture). Leave aside for 15 minutes so they cool slightly.

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4 / 180C.

Using an electric hand whisk, beat your eggs for a couple of minutes. The colour will lighten and they will take on a light texture. Now add in the sugar, ground almonds and baking powder and whisk until just combined. Stir in the chocolate and orange.

Transfer to a greased and lined 25cm cake tin and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes. You are looking for a browned top and for the centre of the cake to be cooked through (check using the skewer test).

Take out and allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before transferring to a plate.

Allow to cool completely before icing (I was too impatient and had someone coming so of course the icing slid right off the top)

For the blood orange drizzle, it was simply the juice of an orange mixed with icing sugar until I had the dripping consistency that I wanted. Since every orange has a different amount of juice it is difficult to give quantities but I used about 125g of icing sugar.

You could of course, skip the drizzle and have a pot of cream on hand for a lovely dessert rather than an easy tea time treat.




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