Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake

Even if you don't like marmalade, you should try this: all you taste is orange - Nigella Lawson

I'm going to declare my hearty disagreement with Nigella on this one.

I actually made it a long time ago and blogged it then, so what you're getting here is a re-hashing of old material, but in the new format of this blog. I always annotate my recipes and all i wrote in the corner of the page on this one was a bold horrible. Let's see why.

The Verdict
I am neither a fan of marmalade, nor of fruit cakes (my mum makes a good one though), so what possessed me to make a cake that contains a whole jar of marmalade, I don't know. Look at the photo. It doesn't even look nice. The thing sank in the middle and burned around the edges and was just disgusting. You're lucky I'm even posting this. My husband laughs at me the way I hide all evidence, usually, of culinary failures. If I think something is truly awful, the whole lot will be binned before you can say 'I feel slightly ill.'


Special Utensils or Cookware
None. Just cake stuff. Whatever you have.


Repeatability
Not a chance in hell. I'm not even prepared to take Rose Red's verdict on this one that it was great. I think she should do a post of her version of the cake that worked out, just in the interests of balance, because I ain't making this pile of poo again.

Sauciness
Sorry Nigella. Not even you waxing lyrical about it being gorgeously aromatic is going to convince me this cake was a good idea. I think it's fair to say that Page 170 in this book will never be looked at again.

Overall pleasure level
This was a definite low point in my culinary experience. Heavy, burned orange flavour and an hour or so of my life I'll never get back. Disgusting.

I am happy to report though that in my years of cooking Nigella recipes (since about 2001) this is the only failure I've experienced. Given the number of snooty foodies I know who bang on about how none of her recipes work (she's not a real chef, you know), I don't think that's too bad. So I'm just going to write this one off as momentary glitch. Let us never speak of it again (except for in the comments).

I've also included a new label for 'failures' just so we can easily keep track of what worked and what didn't. It'll be interesting to see how many we have!

Bells