Last year, I visited a friend for an afternoon cup of coffee. She served with it a “Whole orange cake” or “Pan d’Arancio”, as it is known in Italy, which I had never come across before. It is true, I have lived abroad for over 20 years, but really, how could I have missed this beautiful and delicious cake? The reason may be that it is more of a winter cake, seeing that’s when oranges are in season and we rarely came back to visit in winter, preferring the summer. Nevertheless, it was love at first bite! It had that orange taste, with a faint bitter aftertaste coming from the peel, which, I found out, was also included in the batter. It was a revelation!

When I got home, I searched the internet for the recipe and made it many times to the delight of my boys (big and small). But then I thought: “What do I like even better than orange cake?”…. The answer was simple: “Chocolate orange cake!” I began experimenting until I found the perfect balance, resulting in the following recipe.

It is a rich, chocolatey, orangey, moist cake, perfect with a nice cup of tea. I even make muffins out of this so my boys can take them to school for a snack. It can be frozen, but I still have not had the chance to!

I hope you enjoy it, and if you do make it, I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Whole orange and chocolate cake

Keyword cake, chocolate, chocolate chips, muffins, orange, vegetarian., whole orange

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Ingredients

• 1 whole orang peel and pulp, around 260g – untreated, preferably organic
• 300 g flour
• 200 g sugar
• 16 g baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 100 ml vegetable oil
• 185 ml boiling water
• 50 g unsweetened cocoa powder sifted
• 80-100 g chocolate chips optional

Instructions

• • Grease and flour a 23cm cake tin or use baking paper.
• • Preheat the oven at 180/160 (fan assisted)
• • Sift the cocoa powder into a bowl and whisk in the boiling water until it has all dissolved and there are no lumps. Set aside to cool.
• • Wash the orange and cut in quarters. Take all the seeds out (if any are present), then chop everything into small pieces, including the peel, and put it in a food processor to reduce it to a pulp.
  
• • Transfer the resulting pulp into a bowl, add the eggs and sugar, and beat for a few minutes until you get a light texture.
• • Add vegetable oil, cocoa mixture, baking powder and flour and whisk until everything gets incorporated. Bear in mind that you won’t get a smooth texture, but it will look grainy due to the orange peel.
• • Add the chocolate chips if using.
• • Pour everything into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 50/60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Check a few times towards the end, as you do not want to overbake to retain that beautiful moisture.
• • Let it rest for a while (if you can resist temptation) and enjoy!
  
• If you want to turn this into muffins, just divide the batter into muffin cases and cook for 15-18 minutes. Time will vary depending on the size of the muffins; of course, every oven is different.