Chocolate & Orange Marbled Cake

Hi there!
Well, here it is, my first new recipe of the year!
Taken from LEITHS Baking Bible.

Ingredients

Cake:

225g butter, softened

225g caster sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

225g self-raising flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

grated zest of 2 oranges

Icing:

115g plain chocolate

115g butter

225g icing sugar

grated zest of 1 orange

Decoration:

30g white chocolate, grated

30g plain chocolate, grated

Method

1. Preheat oven to Gas 4 or 180C. Grease & line a deep 20cm/8in round cake tin. (I don't have a deep 20cm tin so used 2 shallow ones instead).

2. Cream butter & sugar together, then beat in eggs a little at a time.

3. Sift flour and fold into mixture.

4. Divide cake mixture in half & put 1 half in another bowl. Sift cocoa powder & mix into 1 half.

5. Mix orange zest into other half.

6. Put alternate spoons of the mixture into the cake tin(s).

7.Swirl a knife gently through it once and carefully smooth the top.

8. Place the cake tin in the centre of the oven & bake for 45-55 mins (as I did 2 shallower cakes I cooked for just 25 mins).

9. Leave in tin to cool for 5 mins, before turning out onto a rack.

10. Meanwhile make the filling by melting the chocolate, broken into small pieces, in a bowl over a pan of steaming water. Once melted allow to cool.

11. Cream the butter until soft & gradually add the sifted icing sugar. Add the cooled, melted chocolate & orange zest and beat well.

12. When cake is cold, split into half horizontally. Spread 1 third of the icing inside the cake & use the rest to cover the top and sides. Finish by decorating with grated chocolate.

Voila!

I've not tasted it yet but had a little taster of the icing when I was making it and I think if you like Terry's Chocolate Oranges then you should like this. I also don't think I "marbled" it enough as I was scared of over mixing it but if the family likes it then I shall be more confident next time. I also used grated milk choc to decorate. Will report back with the verdict later...

C xx

EDIT: 8th Jan 2010

VERDICT: Well both my boys love it and want me to bake it again! Hubby said it was nice too but prefers my Choc Fudge Cake (me too!). My verdict... well I found the icing quite sweet and I felt the cake was a tad dry. This may be because I baked it in 2 tins rather than 1 so perhaps that dried it a little. Also, when I divided the mixture in half, one half was slighter more than the other and I added the cocoa to the smaller half. With hindsight it would have probably been better to use the cocoa in the larger half. To be honest, this is just me being picky. In my opinion if you love Terry's Chocolate Orange then you will enjoy this cake. (I'm not a lover of them which is probably why I found it too sweet.) If you try out this recipe, I would love to hear your feedback. Enjoy!

C xx