Dark Chocolate Cake with Orange Mascarpone Frosting!!

This is a little late, but Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all the Mothers out there 🙂

This past Mother’s Day I had my parents over to my house along with my bestie Danny 🙂

I made dinner and dessert and everyone went home full and my folks got all the leftovers 🙂

Lets start with the best the dessert, I made a Dark Chocolate Cake with Orange Mascarpone Frosting…YUM!! 😛

• Servings: 8-10
• Print

For the Cake
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup Chocolate Milk (TruMoo)
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
For the Frosting
Peel of 1 orange and Zest of 1 Orange
1 cup heavy cream
12 oz. mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted (more or less, to taste)

DIRECTIONS
For the Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray two 8-inch round cake pans with non-stick spray
2. In Medium bowl whisk together eggs, hot milk, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour in eggs, hot chocolate, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract. Whisk together until combined. Divide evenly between prepared cake pans.
5. Bake for 30-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

For the Frosting:
Infuse orange peel into cream first:
1. Place cream in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add peels of one orange to the cream and simmer for 2-3 minutes, until the cream has taken on some orange flavor.
2. Take cream off the heat. Remove peels with tongs or by straining the cream. Discard peels. Allow cream to cool a bit before placing in the refrigerator until completely chilled, I did this over night.
3. With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream just until very soft peaks form.
4. In a second bowl, beat together mascarpone and confectioners’ sugar until smooth and creamy. Beat in ¼ of the whipped cream, then fold in the rest of the orange-scented cream and the zest of one orange, (keeping a little to garnish the top of the cake), into the mascarpone mixture until incorporated. Frost cake, keep chilled until ready to serve.

The was great I love the chocolate and orange combo 🙂

Now for Dinner I made Grill Salmon with fresh pasta, pistachio pesto along with sauteed mushrooms and asparagus…it was yummy too!! :

My pasta making

I need to make fresh pasta more often, it really is easy 🙂

Enjoy Everyone!!!