The Chocolate Orange Cupcake

Ok, I don't know what has come over me. It isn't healthy in the slightest. I've caught the recipe bug. I've tried another from scratch cake recipe. This one turned out a lot denser and would lend itself to cake sculpting much easier than some of my other recipes. Which is a good thing. This recipe has a light orange flavor to it, but my favorite part is the orange infused chocolate icing. OH MY GOODNESS!!

I like chocolate oranges at Christmas time and that is exactly what the icing tastes like. I seriously could have stuck my head inside the bowl to lick it clean! Unfortunately, my husband doesn't like any flavors added to his chocolate. So, I had to spread these little delights around to some of my neighbors. Don't you wish you lived close to me?


Cake Ingredients:
* 3 eggs
* 2 cups sugar
* 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

* 1/2 cup fresh orange juice (either from real oranges or buy 100% juice)

* 3 cups flour (if you want a lighter fluffier cake try using just 2 cups flour)
* 1/2 cup powdered sugar
* zest of 1 orange (1/2 for the cake, 1/2 for the frosting)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 9inch cake pans or cupcake pans.

2. Place the eggs and sugar in a mixer and beat for about a minute. Slowly add the remaining ingredients and beat until everything is well incorporated and it looks smooth. Stop the beater to scrape down the sides when needed.

3. Divide batter into the desired pans and bake until the top springs back when lightly pressed. Mine didn't really get brown on top, but the sides and bottom were lightly browned. My cupcakes took about 25 minutes and a cake would be around to 35 minutes.Orange Infused Chocolate Frosting:
* 1 1/2 cups (about 11 ounces) of bittersweet or dark chocolate--60% cacao (you could try it with milk chocolate, I just like my dark!)
* 1 pint heavy cream
* 1/2 cup butter softened, not melted
* 4 cups powdered sugar

My favorite dark chocolate, just 1 block left!

1. Place the cream and chocolate in a sauce pan and melt together. When it is melted and nice and creamy, take it off the heat and let it cool. I let it cool for about an hour.

2. Place in the mixer. Start it up and add the softened butter, mix well and then slowly add the powdered sugar. I probably should have put the chocolate in the fridge because it was still too soft to use as icing, so I put the whole mixture in the fridge to let it firm up. When it was "icing" consistency I stirred it up and started spreading. Mmmm, it was soooo good!

It turned out so nice that I am also entering this cup cake in the Gourmet Girl Magazine's Cup Cake Crawl. For rules and details go HERE.