This Orange Rosemary Chocolate Cake is photographed already sliced into, because 1) I think that’s the most beautiful way to photograph a cake and 2) it is nearly impossible to not want to dive into this rosemary cake immediately upon eating it. It is that good. It has hints of orange throughout, a deep chocolate flavor, and the best part is it is topped with a rosemary citrus sugar. Which to date is my finest invention for a chocolate cake. And don’t try to tell me it’s a brownie…we can get into those semantics later
Read on for how to make it!
Ingredients you will need for this Orange Rosemary Chocolate Cake
This cake has a longer list of ingredients, but they are all baking pantry staples. Here’s what I recommend you have on-hand!
- 2 bars semi-sweet chocolate, 226 grams / 8 ounces, divided
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, 170 grams / 6 ounces
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 165 grams / 5.8 ounces
- 1/4 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder, 28 grams / 1 ounce
- 1 large orange for zest and juice
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 cup loosely packed almond flour, 120 grams / 4.2 ounces
- 1/2 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves
- 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
How to prepare this cake
There are a few steps to this cake, but they are what make it so rich and delicious.
First, you have to create the baking environment. Position a rack to the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F.
Then you need to melt the chocolate, sugar and butter portion of the batter. In a heat-proof bowl, combine 113 grams of semi-sweet chocolate, 170 grams of unsalted butter, 165 grams of granulated sugar and 28 grams of dutch-processed cocoa powder.
I like to use the double-boiler method to do this: Place this bowl in a medium pot with a few inches of water in it. Bring the pot to a simmer and use the double boiler method to melt all of the ingredients together. Stir often, and if it looks a bit grainy, don’t worry.
Then prepare the other wet ingredients in the batter. Start with the orange: zest as much orange zest as you can and set aside. Add two tablespoons of fresh orange juice to a large bowl. Add the egg, egg yolk, 2 tablespoons of heavy cream and 1 teaspoon of orange zest and whisk together to combine.
To combine the two, you first need to temper the eggs. This is to prevent the eggs from cooking when they hit the heat of the chocolate! When the chocolate mixture is full melted, pour a few tablespoons into the egg mixture to help temper the eggs. Whisk that together, add a few more tablespoons, whisk together again, then pour the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture. Stir to combine.
We’re nearly there – add the dry ingredients! Add 120 grams of almond flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and stir into a batter.
Now the crucial part to getting a crackly top is adding more chocolate. So chop up the remaining 113 grams of semi-sweet chocolate and add it to the batter. Don’t ask me the science, but this is crucial for a crisp-crackly top!
Now prepare the baking tin. Pour the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch tart pan.
Make the rosemary orange sugar. Using either a blender or a spice grinder, pulse 1/4 cup of rosemary leaves into a fine, aromatic powder. This should leave you with about 2 tablespoons of finely ground rosemary.
Add the remaining orange zest, ground rosemary and 2 tablespoons of turbinado sugar to a small bowl. Use your fingers to press the sugar, rosemary and citrus together. It should become a bit more wet and smell amazing.
Sprinkle this sugar on top of the cake.
Bake the cake at 350°F for 25-27 minutes, or until the top appears dry.
Let the cake cool for 20-30 minutes before slicing! Serve with ice cream, salt and olive oil on top (optional, but so so good).
Looking for similar recipes?
Here are a few holiday favorites!
Snickerdoodle Puppy Chow
Yuzu Ginger “Lumps of Coal”
Tiramisu Cookies
And that’s it for this Orange Rosemary Chocolate Cake!
If you make it, please tag me on Pinterest or Instagram so I can see! It’s my favorite thing to scroll through stories and see what you all are making.
And of course feel free to leave any questions, comments or reviews! This is the best place to reach me, and I’d love to hear from you <3
Equipment
- 2 heat-safe bowl
- 1 Whisk
- 1 Parchment paper
- 1 9" tart pan or pie dish
Ingredients
- 2 bars semi-sweet chocolate, 226 grams / 8 ounces, divided
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, 170 grams / 6 ounces
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 165 grams / 5.8 ounces
- 1/4 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder, 28 grams / 1 ounce
- 1 large orange, for zest and juice
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 cup loosely packed almond flour, 120 grams / 4.2 ounces
- 1/2 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves
- 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
For serving
- Vanilla ice cream
- Flaky salt
- Good olive oil
Instructions
- Position a rack to the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F.
- In a heat-proof bowl, combine 113 grams of semi-sweet chocolate, 170 grams of unsalted butter, 165 grams of granulated sugar and 28 grams of dutch-processed cocoa powder.
- Place this bowl in a medium pot with a few inches of water in it. Bring the pot to a simmer and use the double boiler method to melt all of the ingredients together. Stir often, and if it looks a bit grainy, don't worry.
- While that is melting, zest as much orange zest as you can and set aside. Add two tablespoons of fresh orange juice to a large bowl. Add the egg, egg yolk, 2 tablespoons of heavy cream and 1 teaspoon of orange zest and whisk together to combine.
- When the chocolate mixture is fully melted, pour a few tablespoons into the egg mixture to help temper the eggs so they don't curdle. Whisk that together, add a few more tablespoons, whisk together again, then pour the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture. Stir to combine.
- Add 120 grams of almond flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and stir into a batter.
- Chop up the remaining 113 grams of semi-sweet chocolate and add it to the batter. This is crucial for a crispy-crackly top!
- Pour the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch tart pan.
- Using either a blender or a spice grinder, pulse 1/4 cup of rosemary leaves into a fine, aromatic powder. This should leave you with about 2 tablespoons of finely ground rosemary.
- Add the remaining orange zest, ground rosemary and 2 tablespoons of turbinado sugar to a small bowl. Use your fingers to press the sugar, rosemary and citrus together. It should become a bit more wet and smell amazing.
- Sprinkle this sugar on top of the cake.
- Bake the cake at 350°F for 25-27 minutes, or until the top appears dry.
- Let the cake cool for 20-30 minutes before slicing! Serve with ice cream, salt and olive oil on top (optional, but so so good).
Comments
This looks amazing! Do you think this can be made in advance? And If so, how to store and reheat.
Absolutely! It stays moist like a dream and is actually best kept at room temperature (well covered and sealed, of course). It will keep for up to five days. To reheat I suggest popping it in a 350 degree oven for only 5-6 minutes to gently warm it, but it’s not necessary.
I dont have a tart tin or similar, but I thought it’d be cute to use a muffin tin for easy portioning(and more crispy crust)
Any idea how long to bake it gor if I were to try that?
I’d start with 20 minutes and then start checking from there!
oh and can the almond flour be subbed to make it nut free?
I haven’t tested it with a nut free sub, but from my experience a coconut flour or a 1:1 gluten free flour is your next best bet, all-purpose flour is not suitable for this
I made this recipe but subbed coconut flour for almond flour (husband’s nut allergy!) but it turned out pretty crumbly/dry. Would not recommend coconut flour. The ice cream, olive oil, and sea salt on top helped, though, and it was fun to make!
Thank you so much for adding this information, Julia! I, too, was wondering about other flours.
Justine! OMG! OMG! OMG!
This cake is bloody delicious! The orange and rosemary!
I’ve got 2 words for anyone who reads this: “BAKE IT!”
I forgot to add in the 113 grams of chocolate, how screwed am I? Its in the oven already so I guess we’ll find out The batter tasted amazing when I tested it so I’m holding out hope still.
Love your recipes and the new cookbook!
Omg please let me know how it turned out! Transparently, when I was filming it (which was my fourth round of the recipe and I simply could not imagine making another cake), I did the same thing. I had already added the sugar on top and had to scrape it off, get all the batter off of the parchment paper and add the chocolate to the batter and then refilm the recipe lol. Basically I’m sharing my long trauma because it proves the cake is forgiving. I hope it turned out okay!
Update: it was still fantastic but I can only imagine the additional chocolate would have made me love it even more. I’m a total sucker for orange and chocolate together. I’ll definitely be making it again (the right way this time )
It was delicious and got lots of compliments on christmas eve dinner! It was very gooey, in an undercooked brownie/lava cake way, though the top was perfectly crackled. I baked for 27 mins, cooled for 5hrs room temp, then reheated to serve. I used a glass bottom spring form pan so I’m thinking maybe glass bottom needs slightly lower but longer cook time?
My parchment paper was very oily with no crumbs stuck to it, unlike the photos. The only other thing “off book” was that I substituted 126 of the 226 grams of chocolate bar with chocolate chips (126 chips + 100 bar) – not sure if that could also contribute to the gooeyness?
For me, 1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves was only 1 Tbsp ground.
Overall – yum! Would try again
So so glad you liked it!!
Hi. What can I substitute for almond flour and what would be the measurements?
I really would try to emphasize using almond flour if you can! All-purpose flour is not a suitable sub. My next best suggestion would be coconut flour and to use the same amount!
Quick question…
If I do not have a tart pan, then will a 9″ spring form work in its place?
The sides are a little higher than I’d like BUT it should still work! A 8×8 pan might be better if you have one of those!
This cake is AMAZING and I encourage you to serve as suggested. My husband is allergic to almonds so I substituted walnut flour. Justine for the win!!
Ahhhh I’m so happy you liked it!!!
A relative mate this cake and it was so amazing, I’m going to try this when we are back home.
Thank you for this!
Do you think oat flour would be a suitable substitute?
I have not tested it with oat flour, which tends to be a bit gummier than almond flour. I’d aim to stick to almond flour if you can!
Can you use cocoa powder, instead of Dutch process version?
Dutch processed gives you a darker color and richer taste, so know that if you use cocoa powder the color might be lighter and the flavor will be a little less intense! It’s fine to sub, I just always want to note the result will be different.
Truly one of the best cakes I have ever made/eaten. I used clementines instead of oranges and cannot recommend enough – the flavour combo was a killer. Also used dried rosemary (that’s all I could find) and found that it made the herby crunch delightful.
Made this last night and it is so insanely good!! I used chocolate chips instead of a bar because it’s what I had on-hand and it was still so good. I can’t wait to make this for my mom who is allergic to gluten!
Yay! I’m so happy you liked it!
If anyone else perhaps didn’t read the ingredient list fully before starting, and doesn’t have almond flour on hand, I subbed for regular flour with the same weight and it turned out just fine! I would like to top all my snack cakes with an herbed crumble going forward!
We had some guests coming over so I decided to bake this cake, and it was amazing! It came together so easily, and everyone loved it. The weather was awful, so instead of ice cream, I served it with a mascarpone cream, which was a delicious addition.
Thank you for the recipe, I will definitely make it again!!
Can regular sugar or some other sugar mixture be substituted for turbinado sugar?
Any large grain sugar should work!
i don’t usually leave reviews, but this was simply incredible!!
gorgeous texture (worth it to buy almond flour), perfect balance of flavours, and not too sweet (tho that may vary a little with your chocolate).
i had to use fresh thyme instead of rosemary, but the extra tanginess was wonderful. i mixed chocolate chips and bars with what i had on hand, and i also added some (maybe a tsp?) of the chopped herb into the batter at the end. but i’m not sure i needed to – the orange-herb sugar was way more flavourful than i thought it would be!
NOTE: maybe use room temp eggs if you can? when i was first adding some of the melted chocolate-butter mixture into the eggs to temper them, the chocolate got too cold and re-hardened into little spears and crumbs instead of blending smoothly. to remedy this, i just placed my egg mixture onto the double-boiler and warmed up the eggs (while whisking to avoid cooking them!) to slightly above room temp (maybe 35C/90F -ish?). Then i slowly added a few spoonfuls of the chocolate mixture into the eggs and it incorporated much better 🙂
Delicious. Made in a cake pan. Used vegan butter. Turned out perfectly and was a huge hit. Had it with the suggested ice cream pairing the first two nights then ran out of ice cream and realized it was really good without it too.
This is now on the list of one of my best bakes ever. Just amazing flavors. I did bake it in a square pan to make it more brownie like 🙂 I‘m also wondering about swapping in basil for the rosemary, as I really like basil + chocolate. Will update if I try it!
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