Wholesome Chocolate Orange upside down Cake

Chocolate cakes should be rich, decadent, moist, extremely chocolatey and delicious! Isn’t it? This chocolate cake, even though made with whole wheat flour and other wholesome ingredients, is all of the above and then some! It is nutritious and has melt-in-the-mouth soft crumbs. To top things, this cake is perfumed and flavoured beautifully with oranges.

I absolutely love baking with citrus fruits and chocolate and oranges is one of my favourite flavour pairings!

This cake brings this flavour pairing alive along with many wholesome ingredients like Whole Wheat flour, jaggery, almonds, cold pressed oils and plant based milk. It is completely free from any refined flour or sugars.

These are the main elements and ingredients:

Candied Oranges

It is one additional step to candy the oranges and then use them in the cake but it is totally worth it! The freshly candied oranges turn so sweet and jam like, when you taste them along with the cake and get an extra kick of oranges, it elevates the experience so much!

Dry Ingredients

Whole wheat flour / regular gehu aata forms the base of this cake.

For the chocolatey flavour, the only ingredient in this cake is Cocoa powder. So using a good quality cocoa powder is a must. I have made this cake with Dutch processed cocoa powder and Raw Cacao powder and loved them both equally. Look for a cocoa powder that doesn’t have too many additives, has high cocoa fat/butter (10-20%) and is unsweetened.

Almonds not only bring a beautiful flavour to this cake, but also keeps the crumbs very moist and give the cake a rich, decadent mouthfeel.

Cornflour helps provide some structure and creates a melt-in-the-mouth feel in cakes.

Wet ingredients

This cake uses vegetable oil instead of any kind of butter. Oil based cakes have a moist mouth feel as oils do not solidify and are liquid at room temperature. Please use any neutral flavoured vegetable that you prefer to use in cakes. I have made this cake with a mix of both olive oil and coconut oil. I personally prefer to use cold pressed oils in my cooking as I feel they have better flavour than the refined ones.

Like most egg free cakes, this cake also relies on buttermilk for the leavening and that fluffy texture. Instead of making a buttermilk first, this method simply combines a plant based milk and some orange juice in the batter. I have used Oat milk in this cake but any other plant based milk will work here too.

Since this cake is a Chocolate and Orange cake, I have used orange juice as substitute to any kind of vinegar for acidity.

Flavours

This cake does not use any artificial flavours. A little bit of natural Vanilla Extract always helps in enhancing flavour of any cake. If however you do not have natural vanilla extract handy, you can skip it all together in this recipe instead of using a synthetic one. This cake is egg free and so it does’t run the risk of smelling eggy. The natural flavour of oranges and cocoa are enough to bring a beautiful flavour to this cake.

Choose a firm variety of Oranges for making this cake. Preferably one with not a very thick skin and with less seeds. Valencia oranges or Kinnow will work better here. Orange zest has natural oils and brings in an amazing orange flavour.

The leftover syrup from cooking/candying the oranges doesn’t go to waste either. It is used in the batter for sweetness and to enhance the orange flavour further.

Now that we have covered all the important ingredients and their role in this cake, here are the measurements and the recipe!

Vegan Chocolate Orange upside down cake

Serves: 8 Prep Time: 30 mins Cooking Time: 60 mins 60 mins

Rating: 5.0/5

( 1 voted )

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Ingredients

For Candied Oranges -

100g - Raw Sugar
1/2 cup Water
1 Orange thinly sliced

For the Cake -

50g / 1/4 cup - Almonds
130g / 1 cup - Whole Wheat Flour
30g / 1/3 cup - Cocoa Powder
10g / 2 tbsp - Corn Flour
75g / 1/2 cup - Jaggery
1/2 cup - Milk of your choice
1/2 cup - Orange cooked syrup
1 tsp - Vanilla Extract
1 tsp - Baking Powder
1/2 tsp - Baking Soda
1/4 tsp - Salt
2 tbsp - Orange Juice
Zest of 2 Oranges

Instructions

For Candied Oranges -

1. Take the raw sugar and water in a heavy bottom pan and bring it to a boil.
2. Slice the oranges into thin discs, as thin as you can.
3. Add them to the syrup in the pan and cook them at low heat for about 15 minutes.
4. Switch off the heat and take the orange slices in a plate.
5. Reserve the remaining syrup for the cake batter.

For the Cake -

1. Begin by lightly greasing a 7 inch springform or loose bottom pan with vegetable oil. Line the bottom and sides with parchment paper.
2. Once the orange segments are cool, place them at the bottom and a few pieces along with sides on the pan. Set it aside for now.
3. It's time to grind the almonds and whole wheat flour to a fine powder. Flour helps to absorb oils from the almonds as they are being ground and lets us process the almonds more finely than if you do it individually.
4. Take this powder in a sieve and add the cocoa powder, cornflour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift all these in a bowl and our dry ingredients are done.
5. In a large clean bowl, add the jaggery, oil, milk, orange juice, leftover orange syrup (from cooking oranges), orange zest, and vanilla extract.
6. Mix everything and add in the dry ingredients.
7. Using a spatula, fold all the ingredients thoroughly to form an even batter.
8. Pour this batter into our prepared pan and bake this in a preheated oven at 170 C for around 50-60 minutes depending on your oven. A skewer inserted in the middle should come out clean.
9. Take the cake out and let it cool for about 30 minutes before taking it out of the pan.
10. Place a clean plate on top of the pan and flip it upside down.
11. Peel off the parchment paper from the edges and top.
12. Let the cake cool completely before slicing into it.

Notes

1. Valencia oranges or Kinnow will work better for this kind of upside down cake as they are firmer, have less seeds and are easy to slice and handle.
2. Replace raw sugar with regular granulated sugar if you can't find raw sugar.
3. You can candy the oranges in advance and store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a couple of days. Take them out once you are ready to prepare your pan before baking the cake.
4. You can simply slice the oranges and line them at the bottom of the pan too, sprinkle a thin layer of sugar at the base of the pan first (over the parchment paper). But if you have time, I would recommend to candy them first.
5. You can line just the bottom of the pan with oranges too. In this case, it is not necessary to line the sides of the pan with parchment paper.
6. Any vegetable oil like Sunflower oil or Safflower oil will work best here. But olive oil works too, or mix them with some coconut oil like I did to mellow the flavour.
7. Do not be tempted to add more orange juice in the batter. It can affect the texture of the cake.
8. Different flours tend to absorb different amount of moisture. If the batter feels a little thick, add a few table spoons of milk or water. If it feels slightly runny, don't worry. You will just have to bake it for slightly longer, 5-10 minutes.

Did You Make This Recipe?

Have you made this recipe? Tag me on Instagram at @VanillaTrails and use the hashtag #MadeWithVanillaTrails.