Oct 20, 2022, Updated Apr 12, 2024
Why you’re going to love this easy Chocolate Orange layer cake
Bursting with dark chocolate and orange flavor. If you love my almost-famous Moist Chocolate Cake (or my reader-favorite Portuguese Orange Cake), I think you’ve found a perfect partnership and a new favorite in this chocolate orange cake recipe. Stays moist and fresh for days: Because it’s made with oil, it stays softer for longer than a cake made with butter. This cake is SO easy. The dry ingredients are added to a stand mixer bowl, and the lightly whisked wet ingredients get added in after that. It’s so easy it will floor you.
Do you know why orange and chocolate go together?
The classic flavor combination of this chocolate orange cake tastes so good. The freshness from the orange cuts into the rich dark chocolate flavor. You will want to keep eating it all day long. But there’s more to it! The reason chocolate and orange go together so beautifully comes down to a bit of science. Chocolate gives a cooling sensation on your tongue when you eat. This is due to the fact that chocolate’s melting point is substantially lower than the temperature inside your mouth. As the heat moves from your mouth into the chocolate, you experience a slight chilling sensation. The cooling sensation is heightened by the tingly sensation of orange flavor. They really are such a natural pairing.
Chocolate Orange Cake Ingredients:
Here’s a look at some of the stand-out ingredients in this cake. They’re all pretty easy to find in your local grocery store.
Avocado oil: This is a lovely neutral-tasting oil. It gives the cake a beautiful softness. It’s my staple oil because it has a health profile akin to olive oil but without a strong flavor. Perfect for baking. Buttermilk: This ingredient is packed with phospholipid emulsifiers. These allow the fats to disperse evenly within the batter, and the fat doesn’t separate from the water as it naturally would. They also stabilize the foam within the batter and cake crumb making for a softer, more tender cake. Orange juice: Use freshly squeezed orange juice if possible. This will make a difference to the flavor for sure. Note that three oranges equal 1 cup of juice and two tablespoons of zest. Butter: You’ll need unsalted butter for the frosting. Ensure it’s soft or at least room temperature so it whips up quickly and aerates to a lovely fluffy frosting. Cocoa powder: This imparts a rich, dark-chocolate flavor. You can use natural cocoa powder or dutch-processed in this recipe.
How to make Chocolate Orange Cake
This is a relatively straightforward cake to make. The dry ingredients are combined in a stand mixer. After that, the wet ingredients get added in. The cake is baked, cooled, and iced with a delicious, whipped frosting.
Here are the steps to making the dreamy cake layers:
Here are the steps to making the frosting for this cake:
Finally, here are the instructions to assemble the cake.
You can simply slather on the icing if you’re after that rustic look. Here are some guidelines to achieve a neatly-presented cake:
Pro tips and tricks
Here are a couple of tips to take this and your other chocolate cake recipes to the next level:
To get a fluffy and smooth frosting: After you’ve beaten the butter, top the bowl with a sieve and place it on your scale. Weigh the cocoa and butter directly onto the sieve. When you have the right amount, stir the powders with a spatula until your sieve’s load is light enough to shake the rest through. This will give you lump-free icing. Perfect for use with a piping bag. Flouring the pan: Consider using cocoa powder to flour your lined cake pans for chocolate cake. This will avoid getting those white flour spots on the baked cake. Zesting the oranges: Always zest before juicing them while they are still whole and firm. I use a Microplane to do this; it’s such a helpful tool and does the trick with zesting so you can get that orange flavor out. Remember to wash your oranges before zesting them. Juicing the oranges: Choose oranges that yield to pressure when you squeeze them at the grocery store. This ensures a juicy orange that won’t be dry and stringy. Roll it on the counter first to soften it out even more. If you’re using a juicer, push down on the pulp to get more juice out. Creating a crumb coat: This layer picks up any loose cake crumbs and traps them into it. Then, when it’s hard from the fridge, and you ice the next layer, your iced cake will be crumb-free and perfect. Lining the cooling rack: When baking moist cakes, line the cooling racks with parchment paper to avoid them sticking to the grates. Use two separate frames and flip each cake onto its own rack. Use a hand mixer if you don’t have a stand mixer.
What is the secret to making the chocolate orange cake moist?
Here are some tips if you’ve been puzzling around how to make a moist cake with a soft texture, here are some tips.
- Measure properly: Weighing your ingredients as accurately as possible is critical to getting a lovely moist result. Accidentally measuring too much flour is the #1 reason a cake will have a dry texture.
- Mix enough and not too much: mixing cake batters too much once the liquids are added can leave them firm and compact instead of fluffy and moist.
- Know when the cake is baked through and done. FORGET the toothpick test. The safest way to do this is to use your cooking thermometer. It should read 190ºF to be perfectly done in the center and baked through while still moist.
- Use buttermilk for a lovely moist cake. As mentioned earlier, buttermilk is full of phospholipid emulsifiers that ensure a tender and fluffy cake.
- Use oil instead of butter: oil-based cakes tend to feel softer than butter-based ones. This is because, once the cake is cooled, butter goes back to being solid at room temperature, while oil is liquid at room temperature. Avocado oil has a neutral flavor which is perfect for baking. It’s my preferred oil to cook with because of the health profile, but it is expensive. Feel free to swap in your favourite oil like sunflower or canola if you rather. If you’d like to dive in deeper, I shared all my pro secrets based on the science of baking in this article on Moist Chocolate Cake and this article on Moist Vanilla Cake.
