A beautiful chocolatey layer cake recipe which serves well for any number of fillings. For this rhubarb and orange chocolate cake, the two sponges are sandwiched together with rhubarb and orange cream. Perfect for afternoon tea in the garden.
Significant Birthdays
Since I started this blog, my friends seem to have had a lot of “significant” birthdays. Is this just a weird coincidence or is it because I’m more aware of these things now I’m doing my blog and always seem to have cakes on the brain – rhetorical question. Last year we went to a 30th, a 40th, a 50th, a 60th and a 70th birthday party. I thought that was rather unusual.
A couple of weeks ago, we were off to the 2nd 60th birthday party this year. So, with some rhubarb to use up, I made yet another rhubarb and chocolate cake.
Part of the celebrations included painting a mural on a barn wall. What a lovely idea. Unfortunately, the rather wet weather we experienced prevented this happening. I suspected the planned bbq wouldn’t go ahead either and to be honest it wasn’t a rip roaring success.
Luckily there was still plenty of delicious food to be had in the house.
Despite the wretched weather, the party was a lively and fun affair. Amazingly, or possibly not, given it was a birthday, one large table was completely laden with cakes. Spoilt for choice was an understatement. I was rather perturbed, wondering who would go for my relatively plain looking cake. But hey, I needn’t have worried.
Rhubarb and Orange Chocolate Cake
It seems I have a following and those in the know homed straight in on my cake. I’m glad to say they were not disappointed. This was a great tasting cake. The sponge was even better than a similar one I made a while back with strawberries. And the rhubarb orange cream was gorgeous and complemented the chocolate really well.
Rhubarb Cream
The rhubarb cream is really delicious. All you need to do is cook up some rhubarb with sugar and a little orange juice. Once it’s cool add a spoonful of orange liqueur if you like that idea, then fold the lot into some whipped cream.
I had a substantial amount left over, which we had over the following couple of days with strawberries. Yum. But I’ve put a more modest quantity in the recipe, which is just right to fill this cake. However, if you want some to use for other purposes, just double or triple the quantities.
Rhubarb and Orange Chocolate Cake: Top Tips
Melt the chocolate over the pan of rhubarb as it cooks. It only takes a few minutes for the chocolate to melt. As soon as you’ve removed the pan, the rhubarb juice can start to evaporate. This is how I do it as it saves a little bit of washing up and general clutter.
If you don’t want the lines of the cooling rack to appear on top of your cake, cover the rack with a clean tea towel. Then turn your cakes out to cool on top of the cloth covered rack. This does create additional washing, so I only do this for special occasions.
Swap the rhubarb cream filling for strawberries and cream or raspberries and cream. Just slice the fruit and fold into the cream with a spoonful of icing sugar. They’re super delicious too.
Other Chocolate Layer Cakes You Might Like
- Celebratory chocolate cake (vegan)
- Chilli chocolate cake
- Malted chocolate cake
- Salted caramel chocolate cake
- Scandinavian chocolate cake (made with rye bread)
- Triple chocolate cake
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you bake this rhubarb and orange chocolate cake, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter.
If you’d like more rhubarb recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.
Choclette x
Rhubarb Orange Chocolate Cake. PIN IT.
Rhubarb and Orange Chocolate Cake – The Recipe
Rhubarb and Orange Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
Chocolate cake
- 100 g dark chocolate – broken into small pieces I used a spiced orange dark chocolate bar
- 175 g unsalted butter
- 200 g dark brown sugar
- 3 large eggs I used duck eggs
- 1 orange – juiced and zested
- 225 g wholemeal spelt flour I swapped 25g for quinoa flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 pinch sea salt
- 100 g Greek yoghurt
Rhubarb Cream
- 250 g rhubarb – cleaned and chopped two sticks
- 25 g golden granulated or caster sugar
- 1 tbsp orange liqueur (optional)
- 100 ml double cream
Instructions
Chocolate Cake
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of hot, but not boiling water. Leave to cool a little.
- Preheat the oven to 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4).
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light in colour and fluffy in texture.
- Beat in the eggs, one by one, followed by the orange zest and melted chocolate.
- Sift in the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder and salt. Stir until nearly combined.
- Reserve 1 tbsp of the squeezed orange juice for the rhubarb, then measure out 50 ml. If there's not enough juice, top up with water.
- Stir in the orange juice and yoghurt until everything is just combined.
- Divide the batter between two round 20 cm (8 inch) silicone moulds or lined cake tins. Bake in the middle of the oven for thirty minutes or until the tops are firm to the touch and an inserted skewer comes out more or less clean.
- Leave to cool for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Rhubarb Cream
- Meanwhile stew the rhubarb with the sugar and the reserved 1 tbsp of orange juice until the rhubarb is soft and most of the water has evaporated. The mixture should be fairly thick and will take between about ten minutes. Leave to cool.
- Stir in the orange liqueur, if using.
- Whip the cream into peaks, then fold into the rhubarb mixture.
- Sandwich the cooked sponges with the cream, then dust the top of the cake with icing sugar.
Rhubarb is quite sharp and is a good combination with orange and chocolate. Great recipe.
Oxslip – I’ll soon be posting an even more delicious cake – in my humble opinion anyway.
I want your rhubarb and your inspiration. Yum
Thanks Sushma – that should be easy enough to get hold of then!
hi, Maida is nothing but plain flour..
Hannah – thank you. I’m pretty amazed myself, when I began this blog I had no idea such a huge variety of chocolate recipes were possible and the more I do the more I want to make – aghhh!
Nic – I do try 😉
rhubarb and orange is a divine combination. What a temptress you are with your lovely cakey creations!
This sounds absolutely delicious! I am always amazed at how you come up with new chocolate recipes :o)
Nicisme and Margaret – thank you both for you lovely comments.
Chele – just going over to your blog to see if you did anything with that rhubarb!
Mmmmmmm … i have some rhubarb in the fridge I need to do something with …
The cake looks wonderful and I especially like your use of rhubarb and cream.
I would have gone for your cake first, it looks divine!
Hopeternal – will be watching out to see what you make.
Johanna – thank you for the nice words about my cake. Shame as it was not being able to paint the barn, it still turned out to be a good party.
this doesn’t sound at all plain – it sounds luscious and full of wonderful flavours. And what a shame the weather stopped you doing the barn mural – I think I would love this sort of party
An unusual combination, but it sounds delicious. I had been thinking about making a rhubarb cake…thanks!
hopeeternal
‘Meandering through my Cookbook’
http://www.hopeeternalcookbook.wordpress.com
Thank you Celia – I like having friends of different ages too, it helps to gain a different perspective on life.
Suzler – Thank you, I just happened to have some rhubarb that needed using up and thinking how can I combine it with chocolate. I’m not sure how many more ideas I could come up with. Next year will be the test as our own rhubarb should be established by then and hopefully I will have lots!
Oh Kath, you say such nice things.
CityHippy – I was hoping for a photo of all the other cakes, so you could all see what a wonderful array there was, but it didn’t come off.
Thank you BVG
Gill – thank you for your confidence – I might need to see your hat first before any betting took place!
CC – it is fun trying out different flavour combinations.
Suelle – I always think of rhubarb as quite a strong flavour, but I guess it depends just how much you want that flavour to come out.
Kate – The co-op do a fairtrade one which I often buy and did use for this recipe. I also use Mayan gold, but it’s more expensive and doesn’t make much difference in a cake.
Hum gooseberries! Off the top of my head, I wonder what they would be like used in an upside down cake – the more I think of that the more I’m liking it. Or something similar to this one using gooseberry fool as the filling – maybe flavoured with elderflower. Or just put whole into a chocolate cake mix????
Jacqueline – Next birthday coming up is mine and I have to make a load of cakes for work – still not sure what I shall do.
Aforkful – I wasn’t quite sure how it would work, but was pleased with the result.
Ele – well I do keep thinking I should maybe try some sort of fruit / crumble combination.
Lucie – Thank you. I sort of thought the white chocolate and rhubarb combination would work, but wasn’t too sure about this, until I made it.
Rhubarb, chocolate and orange – what a fantastic mix of flavours! I love that you have friends from all age groups.. 🙂
What a great combination- so creative! It definitely makes a change from the been-there-done-that rhubarb crumble.
wonderful combination of flavours – this looks a really lovely cake.
Looks terrific! Interesting to know that those flavours work together – I must give the cake a try…
That sounds gorgeous. What a great combination of flavours. Roll on the next birthday and the next cake 🙂
lovely! When you say orange spicy chocolate – do you mean G + B Mayan Gold? That’s a partic fave of mine, but just wondered if there was another similar type.
Any suggestions for gooseberries in chocolate cakes? Just picked some yesterday and I’m wondering whether to just go down the crumble route or involve choc somehow!
Rhubarb and chocolate is a new combination to me too; I’m still a bit sceptical as rhubarb can be easily overwhelmed, but I’ll take your word for it. It certainly looks good!
never had rhubarb with chocolate – how interesting! I can imagine that it works really well
Shame about the weather.
But I’d go for the rather plainer looking cake every time.
I bet my hat it was as gorgeous as it looks.
This cake sounds like perfection to my mind!!
Oh yum! I’d be homing in on that cake too given the choice.
I am very glad you have such sensible friends choosing your cake over everyone else’s. I would too. It sounds like a very delicious cake and the rhubarb orange cream sounds very good indeed.
That just got better and better as I worked my way down the ingredients list! Rhubarb & chocolate cake isn’t something I’d have come up with on my own, but it does sound really, really (really) good actually – especially with all the orangey .. ness. *bookmarks*