Chocolate Orange Cake

I made the orange filling first, thinking, if this fails, then I won't bake the cake! After cutting 8 oranges and topping with orange juice, I dumped in a cup of sugar. This pot of oranges cooked for over an hour, until most of the moisture was cooked off. The end result was a soft orange marmalade! I've made a lot of jam for canning with pectin to thicken, but this was some potent orange flavor. (I will absolutely do this again... and I did with some blueberries you will see soon!)

Chocolate frosting - this is where the orange zest ended up. Smooth and creamy with a punch of bright orange flavor. This will be a recipe idea I use again and again. I often add lemon zest to my cream cheese frosting, so it only made sense to add orange zest to this yummy chocolate frosting.

Brian was my guest photographer. He snapped so many great shots it was difficult to choose which ones to use... so I used A LOT of them! Here are a few more!

That is it, I guess, except for the eating part! By the way, this cake was Brian's idea! What a great idea!