As far as flavor combinations go, I don't think there's much in this world better than orange and chocolate. This recipe comes from a book I bought some time ago at Barnes & Noble. It caught my eye because it's a small, spiral-bound, old-style looking cookbook that only has recipes for cake and frosting. The photos of the cakes and author place the age of this book squarely in the 1980s. I've gotten several great cake recipes from this book and one or two decent frostings. I haven't tried nearly as many of the cakes as I should so I make a vow, starting with this cake, to try a few more.

Orange Chocolate Cake
From Company's Coming Cakes by Jean Paré

• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons orange rind

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C)
  
• Put first amount of orange juice and chocolate chips into a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir often to hasten melting.
  

• In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.
• Beat in eggs 1 at a time.
• Add vanilla.
• Beat until fluffy.
• Add chocolate mixture.
  

• Stir baking soda into second amount of orange juice.

• Combine flour, salt, and orange rind.
• Add to butter mixture in 3 parts alternately with backing soda-juice mixture in 2 parts, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
• Spread in 3 greased 9 inch layer pans.
• Bake in oven for 5 to 30 minutes (20 minutes for muffins) until an inserted wooden pick comes out clean.

So, I've reprinted this recipe word-for-word. The only alteration are the bulleted instructions. I think this recipe is a great example of a few things that you start to realize after baking for a long time, or sooner if you're more observant. First, recipe ingredients are usually listed in the order in which they are used. Here you'll notice that there are two orange juice measurements in the places where they are used, the first going with the chocolate chips, while the second is mixed together with the baking soda and finally into the cake. This makes it much easier than telling you you'll be using 1 1/2 cups orange juice and explaining how to split it up later.

Second, this recipe uses the classic technique of alternating dry with wet ingredients in the last stages of the recipe. It even explains that you should begin and end with the dry ingredients. That is something to store away in the back of your brain for later use when you come across another recipe that uses this technique but doesn't do the good job of reminding you of this. You could actually use more than the 3 parts dry to 2 parts wet she describes, just don't use less. The goal of this technique is to get your liquid in without breaking up the batter entirely.

I always find recipes interesting, and this one is no exception, for both when they choose to be brief and when they choose to be detailed. Take this bullet:

• Put first amount of orange juice and chocolate chips into a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir often to hasten melting.

as opposed to this one:

• Bake in oven for 5 to 30 minutes until an inserted wooden pick comes out clean.

In the first bullet regarding melting the chocolate with the orange juice, it says "stir often to hasten melting" which doesn't actually say out right but implies that you should melt these things together, and that is what you should do. I might rewrite this for clarity as: "Put first amount of orange juice and chocolate chips into a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until melted. Set aside." I think that makes it less ambiguous, don't you?

And while the first, I think, shows a key step to be a little vague, the second point is specific enough to say "bake in oven..." which I find quite funny because I wonder where else you would bake a cake at 350 degrees?

Moving on.

Cream Cheese Icing
From Company's Coming Cakes by Jean Paré

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 4 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions:

• Put all ingredients into mixing bowl.
• Beat slowly at first to combine then beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.
• More or less sugar may be added as desired.
• Makes about 3 1/2 cups.

I was going to start my harangue with: this is exactly the kind of frosting I hate, but upon further introspection, tasting, and reading more carefully (someday I will learn) I will tread more lightly. Okay, so I didn't read the part about more or less sugar may be added. I should have added less, knowing myself as I do, and not liking overtly sweet anything. The consistency is not as light and fluffy as a frosting, it's more heavy and solid, similar to what you would get from a can of icing from Betty Crocker, but not as horrid. It has a nice vanilla flavor and ever so slight tang from the cream cheese. Yeah, it's too sweet (notice I only frosted half of my cup cakes). I halved the recipe and put in 2 cups of confectioner's sugar. At most 1 1/2 cups would have been fine.

It doesn't say to sift your confectioner's sugar but after having made this once, I would say it couldn't hurt and might save you from some small lumps.

I know it says to beat at medium speed but I couldn't resist the temptation of taking the kitchen aid all the way to 10! Happily I report no harm was done to baker or icing.