Its Chocolate Week, so I thought it was apt to make a chocolate cake.  This one I found in the June issue of Sainsbury’s Magazine.  I am not really sure what makes it Spanish – maybe the orange? olive oil? or even the ground almonds? Nonetheless its very tasty and easy to make!

Ingredients

125g Plain Flour
50g Cocoa Powder
2 tsp. Baking Powder
0.25 tsp. salt
100g Ground Almonds
175g Caster Sugar
3 Large Eggs, beaten
200ml Olive Oil, plus extra to grease
Finely Grated Zest of 1 Large Orange
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
100ml Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C / 160C Fan / Gas 4
• Grease a 1Kg loaf tin with olive oil and line with baking parchment
• Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl
• Stir in the ground almonds and caster sugar
• Make a well in the centre and add the beaten eggs, olive oil, orange zest, vanilla extract and orange juice.  Mix to a smooth batter.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin
• Bake for approx. 1 hour 10 mins (cover loosely with a sheet of non-stick baking paper after 50 minutes)
• Remove the cake from the tin and peel back the lining paper. Cool on a wire rack

The magazine recommends serving with Strawberries, but I didn’t have any so I served with a dollop of crème fraiche and some orange zest.  Delicious!