Orange-Ancho marble cake

A while back I wrote about Petra's baking website. Petra, apart the fantastic collection of bread recipes, seems to have some fantastic cake recipes up her sleeve too. After reading my marble cake post, she sent me a very interesting take on this popular recipe: an orange and ancho chilli flavoured version. I was eager to try it out ASAP but I had to wait till my local "ethnic" shop recieved a new batch of ancho chillies. I bored the hell out of them for about four weeks till, finally, they got some. I went home with my little loot and got ready to bake.

The cake got enthusiastic comments from my "lab-rats", and rightly so. It is an incredibly moist, soft cake with the citrus flavour balancing the dark chocolate and smokey ancho notes. The only, tiny, disappointment was the absence of any heat from the chillies: nothing to do with Petra's recipe, rather my batch of anchos was probably very bland. Next time I'll probably taste the ancho puree and eventually add a tiny amount of cayenne pepper. I made two little modifications to the recipe. I reduced the sugar in the dough because I knew the tastes of the people whom I served this to: for them a bit less is a bit better when it comes to sugar and so I adjusted the amounts. I also used baking powder instead of the tartrate baking powder Petra suggests. I thought I had some but noticed too late I hadn't: it worked fine all the same.

After the talking, the recipe. I hope Petra doesn't mind me sharing this. First make the following:

Ancho puree

4 Ancho chillies
enough boiling water to cover

Leave 2 hours. Drain and dry chillies. Remove stems and seeds. Reduce to puree together with 120 ml (4 fl oz) of the water used to rehydrate the chillies: if the chilli water tastes bitter use normal water. Makes enough for two cakes, store unused puree up to 1 week in fridge or freeze.

chocolate syrup

60 ml water (2 fl oz)
30 g butter (just over 1 oz)
150 g dark chocolate (5.3 oz)
1 Tbsp honey

Melt everything together over low flame. Stir till smooth. Makes enough for two cakes.

And now to the cake itself: Orange and Ancho marble cake

225 g Butter, softened at room temperature (8 oz)
250 g (or 300 to stay true to petra's recipe) sugar (8.8 oz)
5 eggs, room temperature
220 g all purpose, or even better, cake flour (7.8 oz)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp tartrate baking powder (missing that, substitute normal baking powder: it will work fine)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla essence or 1/2 vanilla pod's flesh (aka seeds: the black stuff you scrape from the pod)
zest from 2 untreated oranges
2 Tbsp orange juice

Heat oven to 175C (350F)

Take a Napfkuchen or Gugelhupf form (25 cm diameter), butter and flour it or, better, use bread crumbs instead of flour

Cream butter and sugar till well whipped. Add one egg at the time, waiting till the first is well incorporated in the mixture before you add the next, and so on till all eggs are mixed in the batter. Mix flour, salt and backing powder together and sieve on the egg-butter mixture. Mix till incorporated. Divide in two equal portions. Fold orange juice and zests into one half and vanilla, half the chocolate syrup (about 1/2 cup) and half the ancho puree (about 4 Tbsp) to the rest of the batter. Spoon into the mould, alternating "ancho" and "orange" batters. Bake around 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out dry and clean. Let cool 10 minutes in the mould then invert on a cooling rack, freeing the cake. Let cool. Finish with glaze (see below).

Glaze

2 Tbsp Cointreau (or, as per original recipe Grand Marnier)
100 g confectioner's sugar (3.5 oz)
orange juice

Stir sugar and liqueur together and add only enough orange juice to obtain a thick paste. Pour or brush on the finished cooled cake.

The recipe is based on Petra Holzapfel's modification of Jacqueline McMahan's recipe in "San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook"

Comments

[Petra]

Hello Alberto,

I'm very glad you liked the cake :-)
The addition of a little bit of cayenne may be a very good idea if you prefer it hot, in fact the heat of the anchos isn't very distinct.

[redbeard]

You might also try leaving the seeds in. The seeds and ribs of a pepper are where most of the heat lies. Given that you're pureeing the chili, that might help a bit. But overall, yeah, anchos aren't really the hottest pepper in the bunch, so perhaps some cayenne will do the trick.

[daphne]

I KNEW there was some ingenious way to use all my little plastic baggies of dried ancho chiles that I've brought to the cabin this summer (chipotles are really smoky and habeneros are really hot but ancho lies in the middle; so I agree w/ redbeard another chile might give the cake the kick you are looking for).

[Theresa]

The colours of the cake match the colour scheme of your blog!

[Alberto]

Petra: thanks again for the recipe, it's definitely a keeper. I had no idea you were "Cascabel" :-)!

Petra, redbeard and daphne: thanks for the tip about the "heat" level of the cake (a chilpotle chocolate cake idea starts to form :-)). I actually had the feeling that the anchos I had were quite mild compared to other anchos I had before. I wasn't looking for hot but rather a light tingle on the tongue.

Theresa: you're right! I hadn't noticed.

[Dave]

Hey Alberto,

Looks scrumptious. I often use dried ancho chilis specifically because I love the chili flavor but don't actually like much heat. When I use them I usually process them to fine dry powder in a coffee grinder (I have one dedicated to spices). Do you think they become processed more finely as a liquid puree rather than dry? I hope to try this recipe soon. Thanks.

[Alberto]

Dave, thanks. I tried both: grinding gives without doubts a finer processed product, but the difference is not that big. I think the main difference is in how you want to use the anchos. I wouldn't use powder for this cake since the puree adds moisture too.