Never do I have more in common with Lot’s unnamed wife, who looked back, then at the end of citrus season when the time comes to bake with different, albeit intrinsically exciting, flavorings. As a result, I like citrus desserts for Easter AND for Mother’s Day. Markets often tempt us to buy strawberries for Mother’s Day, but they really aren’t good yet. I try to resist and stick with the citrus, which will soon be missing from my life. 

We also love making this cake for December gatherings. 

And also for book clubs in January and February. 

Orange Chocolate Chunk Bundt Cake is delicious with or without the chocolate, but I ALWAYS make it with because that keeps it in the chocolate cake category which is my (Kate, but I know I’m not alone in this) life-long favorite category. This cake also has a crisp outside (especially the day you make it) and a tender crumb which is an amazing combination. Please eat slowly enough that you can enjoy the texture. As with its Bundt comrades, the cake travels beautifully if you want to walk or drive it somewhere and share. 

Orange Chocolate Chunk Bundt Cake

Only make this cake if you have a good zester. Ours is a microplane zester. If you use a regular grater, you will get some of the white pith into the cake and it is bitter. Bitter cake isn’t better. 

Adapted from In the Sweet Kitchen lemon cake recipe and the combination inspired by Ina Garten

1 cup butter, room temperature 

2 cups sugar 

4 eggs, room temperature 

3 cups flour 

1/2 teaspoons salt (heaping, even though usually you shouldn’t do such a thing; this is a daring cake)

1/2 teaspoon soda 

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

grated zest of 3 oranges 

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325.  Thoroughly grease and flour (Pam grease and flour spray works great) a 10-inch Bundt pan and set aside. A larger Bundt size also works fine, but smaller will not contain the batter.

Wander into the kitchen and pull all the cold items (butter, eggs, and buttermilk) out of the fridge. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and orange zest. Wander out of the kitchen because the cold items need to warm up. 

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy and pale, two to four minutes in a stand mixer (see photo).  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Also mix in the vanilla.

Add a third of the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, then half of the buttermilk, another third of the flour, the rest of the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour, mixing in between additions. 

Add the chocolate chunks and don’t overmix; just mix on low until the batter no longer has flour streaks.  

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a spatula.  Bake the cake for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a test comes out clean, the top is very golden, and the cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the pan.  Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes before removing the cake from the pan.