Saturday, 27 October 2012

Chocolate Chip, Hazelnut and Orange Cakes

These small cakes, baked in 1lb loaf tins, are based on this recipe from Good Food, which has become one of my favourite cakes made with oil instead of butter. It is easily adaptable, as both the polenta and ground nuts can be swapped for more flour, and the batter is stiff enough to take additions such as dried fruit and chocolate chips.

For this cake I used 175g SR flour and 100g ground hazelnuts, and added 140g chopped plain chocolate and the grated zest of an orange for flavour. Otherwise the recipe was as written, leaving out the lemon elements of the recipe.

The batter is usually baked in a 8" round tin, but is just the right amount to share between two small loaf tins.  Because this slightly increases the depth of the finished cakes, the baking time is a few minutes longer than the 40 minutes given in the recipe.

Chocolate, hazelnuts and orange is a great flavour combination which I've used several times already, and dividing the batter in two meant I could be a good mother, and take one cake to CT, who hasn't had any of my home baking for several weeks!

6 comments:

Scotkat said...

Looks so tasty Suelle.

I made a Banana loaf an added cranberries and sunflower seeds.

Katie said...

They look gorgeous and I love how the choc chips have stayed evenly throughout the batter. Lovely flavour combo too

Chele said...

I'm with Katie, they look amazing. They make me want a slice with my cuppa right now! (Is 8:50am too early for cake????)

Suelle said...

It's never too early for cake, Chele!

Caroline said...

They look great - it definitely looks like an excellent adaptable recipe. Do you always include the almonds/other ground nut - I see you subbed out the polenta this time too. I guess that means I should just give it a try really.

Suelle said...

Caroline - I think it would be OK to take out the ground nuts if you were leaving in the polenta for texture. Just add 50g more flour.