Best-Ever Chocolate & Orange Cake - Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking Ep 154

Hi Bold Bakers! Chocolate and orange is a really great flavor combination, especially around the holidays. So today I'm going to show you how you can make a big and bold chocolate and orange cake. So let's get baking. So this cake recipe is my best ever chocolate cake recipe. It is really easy because you mix it all up by hand and it is always a crowd pleaser. On a different note, if you're watching my video for the first time, then welcome and make sure you tap that subscribe button. Okay, we're going to start out in a nice large bowl lined with a sieve. Add in your flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. And then sift all these ingredients together. The reason I like to sift these ingredients is that cocoa powder can often have lumps in it and you really need to get those out so they don't appear in your cake. And this is a lovely, delicate, light cake. Okay, so that's our dry ingredients. We're going to set these aside and mix together our wet ingredients. So into our jug I'm going to add in some buttermilk. Now buttermilk is such an important ingredient in this cake because it makes it really lovely and soft. The acid in the buttermilk actually breaks down the gluten in the flour and gives it that lovely, tenderized cake. If you don't have buttermilk, you can't buy it in your country, you can always make your own and I have a video of how you can do that. Our next ingredient is freshly brewed coffee. Now this is another important ingredient. It gives your cake lovely flavor. Chocolate and coffee pair really well together. However, if you don't want to use it, then you can always just add the same amount of buttermilk in. Next, we're going to add in some flavorless oil. I recommend canola, vegetable oil, anything that has a very mild flavor. Just not olive oil. Next, we're going to crack in some eggs. And then lastly, some vanilla extract because it always adds lovely flavor. And then just with a fork, whisk it all together. The reason I like to mix the wet and the dry separately is so you don't actually over mix your cake and end up toughening it. Okay, so there we go. Now we're going to add our wet into our dry ingredients. And then with a whisk, we're just going to combine all of these ingredients until all the flour is wet. Like I said, you don't want to over mix it. Okay, so this is looking great. It smells great. Now this is ready to go into our tins. Pour your cake batter into buttered tins lined with parchment paper. So I'm using 6-inch cake tins but you can also use 8-inches and I'm going to put a link on my website of where you can buy these. Divvy it up as evenly as you can between the three tins. And that's it. These beautiful cakes are ready for the oven. Bake your cake at 350°F or 180°C for roughly 30-35 minutes. So our timer went off. I've got my bare hands. So let's get our cakes out of the oven. Our cakes are looking perfectly cooked. They've pulled away from the sides of the tin and they're firm in the center which means they are done. So I set the cakes aside and let them cool down and while they're doing that, we're going to make our buttercream frosting. Now this is my master recipe for buttercream frosting. The recipe for this is on my website, BiggerBolderBaking.com along with all of my other recipes including this cake. The best thing about it is you can add any flavor or color you like to it. Today, we are going to add orange. So I'm going to add in some homemade orange extract. I made this as part of Bold Baking Basics. And then I'm going to add in a little bit of orange food coloring just to give that lovely vibrant color. And then I'm just going to mix it all together. During the holidays in Ireland, we would always have a lump of citrus in our desserts, in our traditional cakes and in our puddings. It just really reminds me of home. So once you've reached the perfect color that you want, this is a great orange for me. I like it nice and vibrant. I am going to add it into my piping bag and I just fitted it with a round nozzle. You can use whatever nozzle you like. Okay, we've got our buttercream frosting ready to go. Now it's time to decorate our cake. You want to start out with one of your cakes. I like to decorate on a turntable, it just makes it really easy but you can always decorate on a flat surface. So I'm going to take my buttercream frosting and this is the simplest decoration ever. So all you want to do with your nozzle straight down is just pipe a round of buttercream. Could not be simpler. For those of you who have watched a lot of my cake decorating videos before, you'll know I'm all about simple decorating techniques. Once you've popped your dots all over, we're going to go on with the second layer of cake. Very gently place that on the top. Lovely. As evenly as you can. This looks great. And then, again, with another layer of our buttercream frosting. This is just a really fun and easy way to decorate a cake. Pop on the last layer of cake like so. Perfect. And try and get it as straight and even as possible. Now what we're going to top our cake with is some chocolate ganache. Now this is the chocolate ganache that you use for frosting a cake. I made this on Monday as part of Bold Baking Basics. It's a really great recipe, it's simple, so make sure you check out that video. All I want to do is just pour a little on top and then just very gently bring it over the top and let it drip down the sides. One of the good things about ganache is that it evens itself out so you don't have to spread it around too much. Perfect. This is looking good. So now I've got my buttercream and I'm going to go on top again and pipe some nice big blobs just like we did before of the buttercream all the way around the top. Now here is my secret weapon. Because it's Christmas time, I have a chocolate orange. You know these guys? You usually find them around the holidays. In Ireland, we used to get them in our stockings at Christmas time. They just really remind me of the holidays. So what I'm going to do is just place one of these all the way around the top. Just pop them into the buttercream. Make them stand up. This is looking fantastic. Just a note when making this cake, make sure that your buttercream is really nice and firm so it holds your cake together. You don't want it coming out the sides. Okay, perfect. This cake looks fantastic and it was so easy to decorate. So now I'm going to cut a big slice to show you what it looks like on the inside. And there you have it. A decadent, amazing looking cake that hardly took any work at all. No matter what holiday you celebrate, this cake is perfect for any celebration. Oh my gosh. There is a very good reason why I call this cake my best ever chocolate cake recipe. It is rich and decadent and paired with the chocolate, it is a perfect combination. I really hope you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you back here every Monday and Thursday for more Bigger Bolder Baking.