ANITA TASKER gives one of her favourite recipes, for triple choc orange cake.

WE MAKE a lot of cakes in our little bakery, but this is one of the favourites. It keeps well, is a firm cake but moist, and with grated chocolate and choc chips running through the cake it really is good.

You will need an electric mixer for this cake or a good pair of strong arms and a wooden spoon, a large bowl, a set of scales, a 20cm-cake tin, greased and the base lined with greaseproof paper and then floured out.

Heat your oven to moderate to slow so 160C/325F/gas mark 3. Your cake will take approximately one hour to bake.


Ingredients

125g butter chopped and softened but not melted
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
165g castor sugar
2 large eggs
150g self raising flour
50g plain flour
2 tablespoon cocoa
100g dark choc good quality Belgian is a must, grated but with no finger in it please!
80ml full fat milk 130g choc chips 


Method

Sift the two flours together, and then combine butter, orange rind, sugar, eggs, flours and cocoa and chocolate and milk. Beat until it turns pale in colour – you will see colour change after a few minutes. Then stir in the choc chips and spread the mix into the tin and level.

Place the tin in the centre of the oven and leave to bake. When you skewer this cake it will be a little sticky on your knitting needle – if this is what you use – only because of the chocolate.

So just make sure you can see the sides of cake shrinking from the tin and when you stick in your needle it’s not raw cake mix you can see, just sticky cake. Leave the cake in the tin for about 15 minutes to settle then turn out to cool.

We top our cake with an orange frosting and we make this with half a packet of unsalted butter softened, enough icing sugar to make a nice stiff icing by beating the two together and squeezing the juice from the orange you used for the rind.

• Anita runs Pattacakes, the tearoom, bakery and patisserie at Main Street, Welburn, near Castle Howard.