Orange Chocolate Chip Cake

I love, love, love the combination of orange and chocolate. It rocks my world. As it so happens, oranges are super cheap here right now.(weird considering winter is their prime growing season) but hey I'm not complaining. I also happened to have a spare bag of mini chocolate chips hanging around- so my wheels went a-turning. Think Meghann, think. So I thought, "duh- Moms toll house cake"but add orange zest and orange glaze.

I perused my recipe box and found what I was looking for. I cannot guarantee my mom invented this recipe but then again I do not know where she found it. I adapted this recipe since her original one didn't call for oranges. But my changes aren't too much different, just a bit.

Let me start by telling you, this recipe is super simple, but I screwed it up. Whomp.. whomp...whamp. Every chef aspiring baker goes awry once in a while, this week was my turn. First  a little back story: While I was out getting some brown sugar for the cake, I decided to pick up a box of butterscotch pudding because I love that too.  When I got home from the store I followed the directions on the box, add 2 cups of cold milk, stir and put in the fridge. People this is probably the most simple recipe ever and I messed it up. Aye de me. Turns out if you use soy milk to make instant pudding you need to use less milk (awesome! I didn't know this) So my pudding never set up.

Next failure was my cake. I was super excited because the batter tasted amazing before I popped it in the oven. I had high hopes. I even told RJ, this is going to be awesome. 40 minutes later, the baking gods had set me up for disaster. It was U-G-L-Y it had no alibi. Depressed I swore off baking. Only to be reminded by RJ, if at first you don't succeed, try again. I rolled my eyes, gave a heavy sigh and walked out the door... to the grocery store. I needed more supplies, I wasn't going to let the cake get the best of me.

My second go round was a cinch (just like I thought the first one was) only I remembered to add all of the flour into my mix and not just part of it. PEOPLE - remember to put in the correct amount of ingredients if you want a happy product.

So the moral of this story is: sometimes you have bad cooking weeks, get over it and get back into it.

Chocolate Chip Cake:
2 1/4 C flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2c butter, softened
1 C firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 C milk
1 12oz pkg MINI (not the regular size!!) chocolate chips
Zest of 1 orange

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients; set aside. Save a little of the flour mixture to dust the chocolate chips with.  Mix butter and sugar until fluffy; add vanilla, eggs and zest, beating well. Alternately blend in flour mixture and milk to creamed mixture. Stir in chips. Bake in greased and floured Bundt pan for 45-50 minutes. Allow to cool before removing from pan

Orange Glaze:
2 C. Powdered Sugar
1/2 tsp Vanilla
Juice of half and Orange
Zest of half and orange

Stir ingredients together until smooth and set aside until cake is almost cooled. Once you flip the cake onto it's final resting place, drizzle half the glaze over the top, add more glaze if you like it sweet or add on to each individual slice as you go.

I'd like to say this combination is great. It's sweet and goes great with a cup of milk.

Piece!