It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas so here’s a festive cake for anyone like me who isn’t a huge fan of the traditional Christmas cake. A light bundt cake with chocolate and orange flavours. Last year I made a Chocolate orange drizzle cake as a variation of the more common lemon drizzle cake and it was delicious so this year I thought I’d dry something along the same lines with a twist. This cake uses white chocolate in the cake itself and is topped with dark chocolate icing. It’s a simple cake with easy decoration but would look stunning a a centre-piece on any Christmas table.

The lovely people from Bakingmad.com sent me some goodies last week including the delicious Billington’s unrefined brown sugars and allinson fine flour. I used these along with Neilson-Massey Orange essence to make this festive altenative. If you’d prefer to have a go at a traditional chistmas cake Eric Lanlard’s recipe is great and can be found on their website here

I cooked my cake in a bundt cake mould – cooking times may vary in other tins.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

125g Castor sugar

125g Billington’s light muscavado sugar

250g Unsalted butter (softened)

4 large eggs (beaten)

250g Allinson’s self raising flour

3tsp Neilson-massey Orange essence

150g White chocolate (melted)

75ml Whole milk

For the icing:

200g Icing sugar

50ml Water

100g Dark Chocolate (melted)

White chocolate stars / white chocolate chips to decorate

White sugar pearls (optional)

Method:

For the cake:

• Preheat your oven to 170c
• Cream the softened butter and sugars in a free standing mixer.
• Add the half the beaten eggs and a few spoonfuls of flour and continue to mix.
• Add the remainder of the beaten egg and a few more spoonfuls of flour to stabilise the mixture.
• Once the mixture is smooth reduce the mixer speed and add the remainder or the flour.
• Add the orange essence and mix thoroughly.
• Melt the white chocolate in a microwave or in a bowl over a pan or hot water. If using a microwave use 10 second bursts and stir the chocolate between each burst. Once most of the chocolate has melted remove the bowl from the microwave / heat and stir continuously until all the chocolate has melted.
• Use a spatula or spoon to fold the melted white chocolate into the cake mix.
• Stir in the milk until the batter is smooth.
• Grease the bundt tin with butter making sure to cover the entire inside including any details.
• Place a few spoonfuls of flour in the tin and tilt to cover the buttered surfaces with flour. This will stop the cake sticking in the tin.
• Pour the cake batter into the bundt tin and bake at 170c for approx 35 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean – check several points around the cake to ensure it is cooked through.
• Once cooked turn out the cake onto a wire rack to cool

For the topping:

• Blend the icing sugar and water together
• Melt the dark chocolate in a microwave or in a bowl over a pan or hot water. If using a microwave use 10 second bursts and stir the chocolate between each burst. Once most of the chocolate has melted remove the bowl from the microwave / heat and stir continuously until all the dark chocolate has melted.
• Stir the melted chocolate into the icing and pour over the cake
• Sprinkle white chocolate stars and white chocolate chips as decoration – you can also use white sugar pearls.