Tender, rich dark chocolate orange cake layers, filled with orange curd, and covered with a rich silky dark chocolate ganache.
This cake is decadent, rich, and sophisticated.
It is the classier version of the dark chocolate orange.
Although there is an entire chocolate orange and a half baked into it’s layers.

This will make a tall 8 inch cake.

Dark Chocolate Orange Cake

Ingredients

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• 1 ½ dark chocolate oranges
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate
• 3 sticks of butter
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tsp orange flavoring
• 5 cups flour, divided
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup orange juice

Instructions

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Spray 3- 8 inch cake pans with nonstick spray and line them with parchment rounds.

In a microwave safe bowl put your chocolate oranges, semisweet chocolate, and butter.
Cook for 2 mins in the microwave and then pull it out and stir until all of the chocolate is melted and mixed in with the butter.
Add the sugar to the chocolate, then the eggs, vanilla, and orange flavoring, mix to combine.

In a separate bowl, mix your flour, baking soda, salt.

In another bowl mix your orange juice and water.

Take your flour mixture and add half of it to your chocolate mixture.
Then add in your water and orange juice and then the rest of your flour, until all of the ingredients are combined.
Using a cup measure divide the cake batter evenly into three 8 inch cake pans.
Bake at 350℉ for 55 minutes or until the cakes are completely baked.
Put in the freezer overnight and pull them out in the morning to assemble.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients

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• 1 bag Semisweet Chocolate
• 2 bags Bittersweet Chocolate
• 4 cups Heavy cream
• 16 tablespoons slightly melted butter

Instructions

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In the microwave melt your chocolate for 2 mins.
Put a pot on the stove add in your heavy cream and heat until hot to the touch.
Pull out your chocolate and mix to continue melting.
Add in heavy cream and mix to combine.
Once all of your chocolate it fully incorporated with no lumps add in butter and let it melt into the mixture.
Let the ganache cool covered overnight in the fridge.
In the morning pull it out and put into a mixing bowl and mix it until it is smooth enough to work with.
It may need to warm up a little to get it to pipe well.

Orange Curd

Ingredients

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• 12 egg yolks
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• zest of 1 orange
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons of orange juice
• 4 tablespoons plus 3 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup plus 5 tablespoons of cold butter cut into pieces

Instructions

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Put your egg yolks, sugar, orange zest, orange juice, lemon juice, and salt into a pot.
Cook over medium high heat stirring constantly until the mixture boils and thickens.
Take off heat and add in butter and mix until fully incorporated.
Refrigerate the mixture in the fridge overnight before using.

Cake Assembly

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Pull out the frozen cake layers, chocolate ganache and orange curd.
To assemble the cake, put the first cake layer on a cardboard,
smooth some chocolate ganache onto the top of the cake layer and then create a ring around the outside to hold the orange curd.
Put orange curd in the center and then top with your next layer,
repeat until all the layers are stacked and frost the outside with the remaining chocolate ganache.