This post contains affiliate links. Please read my disclosures.

This gluten-free and dairy-free Whole Orange Chocolate Chip Cake is made with whole oranges boiled then pureed for an authentically fresh orange flavour. The cake is beautifully moist and flavourful with chocolate chips dotted throughout for added luxury.

I will always find time for baking another cake. The laundry piling up in the basket may be threatening to engulf our whole bedroom, our dining table buckling under the weight of disorganised post and baby changing paraphernalia and Cole’s toys are now just what we refer to as ‘carpet’. Since his favourite pastime is currently jigsaw puzzles the carpet can be a little raggedy underfoot which I apologise for. Despite all this chaos I can still carve out a little corner of the kitchen, locate my food mixer from beneath bags of shopping which still need to be put away and bake.

Is this need to place cake baking before actual house and family maintenance simply greed? Can I explain it away as recipe testing for the website or the cake stall? Do I do it to calm me down and empty my mind of my breastfeeding difficulties? Or is it an activity with Cole with an aim to share my very favourite thing with him whilst he bashes around with flour, a wooden spoon and snacks on the add-ins. It’s definitely all of the above. I love to bake cakes. I love to eat them, to share them with others and I relish the excitement and happiness that a homemade cake brings to proceedings.

So even if I have been up since 2am trying to settle a baby, I have no idea what I’m making everyone for dinner, the dog needs to be walked and I haven’t showered since Easter. Even then, if you can’t count on anything else from me then you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a freshly baked cake resting on the side of the kitchen. Oh and it will probably be given to my family in lieu of dinner.

This Whole Orange Chocolate Chip Cake is a riff on my really popular Blood Orange Rosemary Polenta Cake which I’ve been making and selling on my cake stall for years. The idea being that last week I was craving a chocolate orange cake with the emphasis on a really orangey sponge and deeply studded with chocolate chips. I realised very quickly how I could bastardise this cake which I already had in my repertoire to fit for purpose. Oh my goodness it worked such a treat and I am loving this new take on one of my old favourites. It was the exact cake I was craving. The only little bit of trouble to the cake is boiling the oranges up for an hour before you are ready to start but once that job is done the cake batter takes about ten minutes to beat together before pouring into the cake tin.

There is also no complicated decorating technique involved, just drizzling copious amounts of chocolate over the top, which makes any cake look tremendously appetising. I don’t have time for any sort of decorating at the moment. I just want the cake. And I would serve this cake up any day of the week, it is so absolutely delicious, moreish, moist and with so much flavour. Actually Whole Orange Chocolate Chip Cake is perfectly suitable for afternoon tea but also for dessert, especially if you were to add a dollop of crème fraiche on the side of the plate.

Now look, Luke thought there were too many chocolate chips in this cake for his money so if you like to err on the side of orange versus chocolate then you are permitted to reduce the chocolate chips by 50g. If, like me, you feel the term ‘too many chocolate chips’ does not compute with your system then stick to the below quantities. In my mind this cake is simple perfection and the reason why baking will always be prioritised over laundry.

SHOP THE RECIPE

The cake tins I always use are these PME Anodised Aluminium Round Cake Pan 8 x 4-Inch Deep which are wonderful as they have completely straight sides so your cakes will be beautifully neat, the anodised aluminium means the heat disperses evenly throughout the cake without cooking the sides too quickly, which some darker cake tins do. The cakes slip out of the tins easily and they come in all the sizes you would need, although typically I use the 8 inch tins.

The links above are affiliate links which means if you decide you want to click through to buy then Amazon gives me a small commission at no cost to you whatsoever. It’s just a way for me to fund the blog so if you do click through then many thanks!! To learn more about how the data processing works when using these Amazon affiliate links then please visit my privacy policy page.

If you like this cake then check out Blood Orange Rosemary Polenta Cake

Comments

SharonP says
June 2, 2019 at 2:06 pm

This is the best and most delicious cake I have ever made and tasted! May try with less choc chips but not complaining at all! Thanks for sharing. X
- Georgina Hartley says
  June 2, 2019 at 6:29 pm
  Hi Sharon, I’m happy you like the cake as much as I do!! Yes, my husband preferred it with slightly fewer chocolate chips too but for me you can never have too many! Thank you for your feedback.
Monika says
May 11, 2018 at 11:34 pm
Now when you say polenta, do you mean “corn grits”? So, the texture is a bit rough, right?
YOu have a beautiful name, by the way, Georgina!
- Georgina says
  May 12, 2018 at 12:49 pm
  Polenta is basically cornmeal. I like to use very fine cornmeal so that the texture of the cake is softer. However, the cake works just fine with courser cornmeal it just changes the texture slightly. I hope that helps!

Whole Orange Chocolate Chip Cake {gluten-free}