Superabundant recipe: Rich chocolate pound cake with candied oranges

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Though they’re ubiquitous today, oranges were once a rare luxury reserved for special occasions. The sunny winter crop brought something extra to the stockings on Christmas morning before rail transport made it possible to ship citrus from Florida, Texas and California. If you ask me, a beautiful piece of fruit is still a fabulous gift.

In the 1800s, oranges were a symbol of the sacks of gold brought by St. Nicholas — yes, the same St. Nick who slips down chimneys on Christmas Eve — to pay the dowries of a poor widower’s three unmarried daughters and spare them a life as sex workers. (Among the many things of which Nicholas is the patron saint, single ladies are but one.)

Orange with chocolate is an entirely different thing, though. Chocolate was introduced to Europe when Spanish colonizers took it from the Americas in the late 1400s, but it was another couple centuries before oranges and chocolate found their matchmaker in French confectioner Félix Bonnat at the turn of the 20th century.

Candied citrus has been a treat for the upper crust since about the Middle Ages — Nostradamus even had a recipe for candying orange and lemon peels. Maybe he developed his technique while trying to crack the alchemical code? Incidentally, it’s not known whether he ever predicted that it’d pair beautifully with chocolate. Makes 1 loaf

Notes: First, have all of your ingredients at room temperature. Yes — we’re using coffee instead of milk for this cake because it produces a stronger, richer chocolate flavor, but if you’re not a coffee person you can use water instead. Finally, you can candy your own orange slices for this, but store-bought is great too (Trader Joe’s has sweetened, dried orange slices and soft/juicy dried mandarin segments — both have permanent spots in my baking cupboard).

Another note: When it came to a question of crushed candy canes vs. candied oranges as a better holiday pairing for chocolate, 86% of those polled* voted 🍊— but you can totally swap the candied oranges with crushed candy canes here if you’re more of a 🍬 person.

*14 OPB staffers who had time to emoji-vote on Slack

Ingredients

Chocolate pound cake

¾ cup (1 ¼ sticks or 10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 large eggs

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder or 2 teaspoons instant coffee, optional

1 ¼ cup brewed coffee, warm (or warm water)

1 cup chopped candied orange slices and/or sweetened, dried oranges

Chocolate glaze

1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

¼ cup cream or half and half

½ cup thinly sliced candied orange peel for strewing across the top

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease/parchment paper a 9 x 4 ½-inch loaf pan.
2. Using a mixer or a spoon, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat in the eggs one at a time until fully combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
3. In a large bowl, whisk or sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. If you’re using coffee, stir the instant espresso into the coffee or warm water.
5. Add a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing until fully incorporated before stirring in a third of the coffee (or warm water). Repeat, alternating dry and wet ingredients until fully combined.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until the top is domed and cracked and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a couple crumbs sticking to it, about 55-60 minutes. Turn the baked pound cake onto a cooling rack.
7. While the cake is cooling, bring an inch of water to a boil in a medium-sized pot. Place a heat-proof bowl on top of the pot, reduce the heat to medium-low, and melt the chocolate chips with the cream, whisking until smooth and shiny.
8. When the cake has cooled to lukewarm, spoon or brush the chocolate glaze over the top and top with the sliced candied orange peel.

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