Halloween Chocolate Orange Holiday Cake

This Chocolate Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing saved my Halloween. I had chosen an online recipe foolishly NOT from the Food Network sites and all was going well until I realized that I had not pre-heated the oven. So I went to look for the temperature in the recipe and could not find it. That is when I realized, um, you are supposed to STEAM the cake?! WTF?! OK, that is a brand new technique for me and there were no instructions on how to go about steaming a bundt cake so I started all over again!

I got out my favourite kitchen tool: my Kitchenaid mixer! My life saver in the kitchen. I adore her so much I named her Rebel. What I love so much about this recipe by Ingrid Abolins that Christine Cushing featured on her Potluck episode is that it is foolproof and breaks all of the rules of baking a cake. You literally throw everything in and beat it together except the boiling water. Yes, I said boiling water! I never! After I added the boiling water (still cracks me up) there were some lumps so I sieved the batter and then put it into a buttered and lightly floured bundt pan:

It looked so liquidy I thought this cake was going to be a disaster but Christine assured everyone on her show that this is the cake that defies all odds.

And she was right! This cake came out perfectly. It was moist, delicious and looked kind of like a pumpkin which is what I was going for!

As the cake was cooling I started to prepare the Orange Cream Cheese Frosting I found on Country Living’s web site. I had left the cream cheese out all morning and it was nice and soft and and beat up in my mixer perfectly. The frosting is flavoured with orange juice and zest and goes beautifully with the chocolate cake. I love that combo: chocolate and orange! You could even add some orange liqueur for those who want additional boost of flavour. My only issue with this recipe is it did not specify how to make the frosting orange. It came out salmon a lot until my husband recommend using a lot more yellow which I did, a ton!

I put the cake on a pretty cake plate and got out some semi-sweet chocolate and my vegetable peeler and added sprinkled to the top:

This cake was a hit at my Halloween get together! Thank goodness. Next time I will definitely make the dessert a day ahead! If you are looking for a super easy chocolate cake to make, I recommend this cake for sure. The frosting is luscious too and if it is not Halloween I recommend just leaving the colour the natural pale orange it turns out to be without the food colouring. If you make this at Christmas you could leave out the orange flavourings and add peppermint! A no-stress cake for the holidays, perfect…