Orange butter cake with chocolate ganache

First of all, I am quite shocked (and those who know me obviously very well know that I may have many talents but cooking is certainly not one of them) that 'I' am going to contribute to this blog and that too - not one but two recipes.

When you belong to a family where almost everyone can cook so well, all level 0 amateur cooks like me can completely understand the pressure of show-offing culinary skills to a set of cooking experts who can smell garam masala from over a kilometer away and can talk about whether a particular dish has X amount of salt, Y amount of ginger, Z amount of heeng, tomatoes, onions, cinnamon, black pepper etc etc. (my only achievement till date is to call out haldi and that too only since the dish looked yellow)

So proud of myself!

Anyways, here is the first one - Orange butter cake with chocolate ganache! (I have to thank Masterchef - at least I can sound intelligent since my food GK is definitely better than an average Indian household and there will be times when I will be using such terms to prove what a good cook I am evolving into :) :)

Here are the ingredients for the cake

• 225 gms  while butter at room temperature
• 170-180 gram sugar (you can reduce it by 10-20 gms more if you like)
• 220 gram flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1-2 tsp orange zest (trust me, peeling it isn't as simple as it looks in many cooking shows that we see :O)
• 1/3rd cup freshly squeezed orange juice. Adding a little more also will not harm.
• Essence (obviously ideally orange, but since I had none at home, I ended up using vanilla and it worked! I think cooking is not as difficult as I thought it will be)

Ingredients for chocolate ganache

• 100 g dark chocolate, chopped (I used Lindt Dark, Orange Intense - really worked very well :))
• 100 ml of cream

Method is simpler and shorter than list of ingredients

• Grease and line an 8” round baking pan or a  loaf pan. 
• Preheat oven to 175-180 degree C. 
• Sieve flour, baking powder and salt.
• In a separate bowl, mix butter and sugar until light and creamy. 
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until mixture is light and fluffy. Add in the orange zest.
• Add in the flour and stir in orange juice. Mix until well combined.
• Turn out mixture into prepared tin. 
• Bake for 45-50 or until cooked through when tested with a fork. the cake is ready!
• For ganache, heat the chopped dark chocolate and whipping cream over a low heat and stir till melted and smooth. Let it cool for about 10-15 minutes and spread over the cake.

And eat when hot! :)