The Recipe Room

This yellow layer cake with orange chocolate frosting is a small variation on your typical yellow sponge cake.  I was getting a bit bored of plain old chocolate or vanilla frosting and decided to get a bit more adventurous.  Of course, if you prefer, you can just make the sponge and use whatever frosting you prefer, but where’s the fun in that?!

This recipe uses only two layers of sponge cake, but I sometimes use three, depending on your mood. You could also make fun shapes, like in this chocolate orange Valentine’s cake.

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

• 4 eggs, whites separated from yolks
• 225g butter, softened
• 400g granulated sugar
• 240g cake flour
• 2tsp baking powder
• 1/4tsp salt
• 250ml milk

 

For the frosting:

• 125g cream cheese
• 315g icing sugar
• 125g cocoa powder
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 3tbsp orange juice
• Grated rind of 1 orange

 

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 175ºC.
2. Grease and flour two 25cm round cake pans, or line them with baking parchment and set aside.
3. In an electric mixer with a wire whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until they are soft but not dry. Set aside.
4. With the electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and gradually add the granulated sugar, beating until light in colour.
5. Mix in the vanilla extract.
6. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
7. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
8. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix until batter is smooth.
9. Carefully fold the flour mixture into the egg whites.
10.  Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
11.  While the cake is baking, prepare the frosting as follows:

• Mix all the ingredients together by hand or with an electric mixer, setting aside just a pinch of the grated orange rind.
• If the icing is too runny, add a little more icing sugar until the desired consistency is achieved.
• Refrigerate until you’re ready to frost the cake.

1.  Remove the pans from the oven and place on a wire cooling rack for 5 to 10 minutes.
2.  Carefully remove the cakes from the pans and continue to cool on the wire racks. Remove and discard parchment before decorating.
3.  When cool, frost with the orange and chocolate frosting you prepared earlier and sprinkle over the remaining orange rind. Slice and serve.

Prep Time:  30 minutes

Cooking Time:  30minutes

Serves:  10

Difficulty:  Medium