Chocolate Orange Chocolate Box Cake

Difficulty: Easy

My mom always made tasty cakes, in a short time span. Her trick: doctoring up box cakes. Swap out the oil requirement for butter, and the water requirement for juice. It works for just about any flavor of cake and a variety of different juices. This is for a Chocolate Orange cake, but Lemon Pineapple with whipped cream is pretty amazing too. Experiment!

Ingredients:
Cake

• Chocolate box cake (in this case, Dark Chocolate Fudge)
• Butter (in amount on box cake)
• Orange juice, any amount of pulp (in amount on box cake)
• Other ingredients as listed on box (eggs, etc)
  

Frosting

• 8 oz Baker's bittersweet chocolate (1 box)
• 1 and a half cubes butter
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• about a cup powdered sugar
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup milk
• salt (to taste, I used over a teaspoon)
  

Filling

• 2 or 3 tangerines (or an orange)
• sour cream (small container)

Using two 8-inch round cake pans, make the cake per the directions on the box, but where the directions ask for oil, use the equivalent amount of butter. Where the directions ask for water, use that amount of orange juice. It's usually best to bake it a few minutes less and test the the center of the cake with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out of the cake clean, your cake is done. Let the cakes cool before removing them, about 15 minutes.

For the frosting, melt the box of chocolate and butter over low heat in a small pan. Once chocolate and butter have melted, mix them until smooth, then add the vanilla. In a small jar or cup, mix a small amount of milk with a decent amount of the powdered sugar, to remove lumps. (In a closeable jar, you can just shake the jar vigorously.) Slowly the sugar-milk syrup into the pan while stirring the chocolate. Taste it periodically until you reach your desired sugar level. I prefer it a bit on the tart side. A few generous dashes of salt will cut the sharpness of the bittersweet chocolate.

If you're feeling adventurous, take the fresh tangerine or orange, wash well, and use a cheese grater to grate some fine bits of the citrus peel into the frosting. I demolished 2 tangerine skins. It's best done when the fruit is whole.

Overturn one cooled cake onto a plate, leaving the cake upside down. Using a bread knife, carefully cut it in half. Spread a healthy dollop of sour cream onto the upside down half (I used four to six tablespoons, at least), then spread chocolate frosting on top. Replace the other half on top, and squeeze the fresh citrus juice over this (I used one and a half mandarins of juice), then grate more citrus skin over this layer. Add more chocolate frosting.

Overturn the second cooled cake onto a separate plate, cutting it in half, and placing this cake bottom on top of the pile, adding another sour cream and chocolate layer. Place the last half on the cake, and pour as much frosting as you'd like over it. If you slowly let the chocolate seep over the side, you can use a knife to spread it around the sides. Use a spatula (or your finger, mmm) to clean up any stray drips of chocolate onto the plate around the edge of the cake. The frosting will be soft but solid once at room temperature, and become hard when placed in the fridge.