Vegan Chocolate and Blood Orange Torte
This Vegan Chocolate and Blood Orange Torte is the perfect mix of bittersweet in decadent cake form. Get the recipe below.
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Decadent desserts
This Blood Orange and Chocolate torte is a really rich and decadent dessert that can be served alongside a hut mug of coffee, as part of a celebration or at the end of a dinner party. Your guests will be talking about this recipe, whatever the occasion.
But you may be asking yourself what is a torte? And why should I make this instead of a regular cake? A torte is a rich, cake which is usually only leavened using eggs.
Of course vegan cakes have to rely on other leavening agents such as bicarbonate of soda to make them light and fluffy. By reducing the amount of these vegan leavening agents you can have to create a slightly more dense and moreish cake type that is similar to a torte.
It’s moist and fudgey and oh so delicious.
Dark chocolate & blood orange
Chocolate-orange is a classic flavour combination. It’s been in existence for years and can be found in everything from high end French pâtisserie to store bought confectionery like the Terry’s Chocolate Orange!
What I love about pairing dark chocolate and blood orange is that it takes this flavour combination to two extremes.
On the one hand you have a bitter, dark chocolate and on the other a sweet, syrupy blood orange. This creates a wonderful pairing that is incredibly moreish whilst still celebrating dark chocolate and blood orange in their own right.
How to make a Vegan Dark Chocolate and Blood Orange Torte
In a lot of ways, my recipe is a blood orange upside down cake!
The first step in making this cake is cooking thin slices of blood orange until the peel and pith is soft and edible. This is done in a light syrup which gets added to the base of a cake tin along with the slices of blood orange themselves.
Next, a thick and gooey chocolate mix is poured over the top of those orange slices before it is baked.
Once it comes out of the oven and is turned out on to a wire cooling wrack, you see those golden blood oranges slices embedded in the torte.
It’s a super simple recipe that has a huge impact as it’s as good to look at as it is to eat.
The recipe
Vegan Chocolate and Blood Orange Torte
Equipment
- 1 7" cake tin
Ingredients
- 200 g caster sugar
- 2 blood oranges cut into 3mm slices
- 225 ml soy milk
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar
- 150 ml vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 150 g plain flour
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
- 0.5 tsp baking powder
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- icing sugar to dust
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 160 C / 325 F / gas mark 3 and line your cake tin with grease proof paper.
- Put 200g sugar and 120ml water in a large saucepan set over a medium heat; stir to dissolve the sugar.
- Add the blood orange slices to the pan and bring to a gentle simmer.
- Let the blood orange slices cook for 15 mins or until you can see they have softened and the rinds are beginning to turn translucent, then remove from the heat.
- In a jug whisk together the soy milk, red wine vinegar, vegetable oil and vanilla paste. The vinegar might cause the milk to split or curdle but do not worry, this is supposed to happen. Leave this to one side while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
- In a large bowl, sieve the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda, baking powder, caster sugar and salt. Whisk them together to make sure they are well incorporated.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.
- Arrange the orange slices in the bottom of the cake, starting from the inside and working your way out, letting them overlap slightly then drizzle over a little of the syrup.
- Pour the mixture into your cake tin and place in the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until the cake is springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
- Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring it onto a wire rack
- Finish with a little more of the orange syrup.
Nutrition
More blood orange recipes
More cake recipes
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