Chocolate and Orange cake

As promised last week, here is the recipe for a cake I made for a friends' birthday. It is a very simple cake, but everybody went crazy about it. I adapted it from this recipe, though I did not use the Cointreau-syrup since the boy hates the flavour of alcohol (I told him it would completely evaporate, but he really doesn't like it). Even so, the cake was moist enough, as I added extra orange preserve in the filling. I also added cinammon, as I do on almost everything.

You will need:
For the cake
-200 gr butter
-200 gr.  flour
-200 gr sugar
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-4 eggs, room temperature.
-the zest of an orange
 -orange preserve or jam.
-a hint of cinammon

For the chocolate buttercream 

-300 gr. butter

-300 gr. icing sugar

-150 gr. dark chocolate (for me, the darker the better but that's up to your own taste)

 What to do: 

Preheat oven to 170º C. Butter and flour a cake pan (mine is 22 cm.). Sift the flour with the baking powder. Cream together butter and sugar. Add the eggs, 1 at a time. When the mix is homogenous add the orange zest, the cinammon, and finally the flour. Pour on baking pan and bake for 45 min - 1 hr, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Let the cake cool. In the meantime, prepare the chocolate buttercream. Beat together butter and icing sugar at medium-high speed until the mix becomes light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). If you want to avoid making a mess the size of your kitchen, as the icing sugar will fly in every direction as you beat, cover the bowl with a moist tea towel when you begin to beat the mix, just for the initial stage when the butter and icing sugar will integrate.

Melt the chocolate au-bain-marie and add to the butter and icing sugar mix. Let your buttercream become even and stop beating.

When your cake is cool, cut it lenghtwise. A lazy-susan can prove to be very useful for this step, and for cake decorating in general. Ours is from the swedish place and I use it all the time. Fill your cake with orange preserve and chocolate buttercream. Put the top layer of cake on top, cover your cake in a thin crumb - coat and let it set. I have no patience, so I put it in the freezer for 15 minutes, but 30 minutes in the fridge also work. Finally cover your cake in the rest of the buttercream and decorate with colorful sprinkles for a kindergarden effect. Enjoy !

I had some extra chocolate buttercream (that recipe makes a lot), so I made this no-fail banana muffins and covered them in it. They were super yummy too.