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This chocolate orange olive oil cake is a winner.

It’s a spin on a cake that appeared in chocolate-guru Alice Medrich’s book Bittersweet (still totally worthwhile for anyone serious about baking with chocolate).

That version, which she called her tiger cake, was a marbled olive oil cake with chocolate and white pepper.

And I made that cake a number of times back in the mid-aughts and always enjoyed it—especially the way that the two batters sort of magically marble into each other in the most lovely ways.

But then, for years, I pretty much forgot about it.

That is until a few weeks ago, when I found myself envisioning something similar.

Except there would be no white pepper.

And the base would really be an orange olive oil cake with plenty of orange zest for bright citrus flavor.

Oh, and actually it would be an orange almond olive oil cake, because I can never resist adding almond meal to any dessert with oranges.

Especially because almond goes so well with chocolate (like these almond shortbread brownies).

And I would boost the chocolate flavor with a generous dose of instant espresso powder for a subtle nod to a Mocha Valencia.

And, well, maybe it was not really very much like the original at all.

I know the combination of citrus and chocolate isn’t for everyone, but I just love it here.

The orange comes through and it plays beautifully with the olive oil, which somehow seems to amplify the citrus flavor.

And the almond is subtle but nice.

The orange almond olive oil batter serves as the base for the whole cake, but it gets divided in half and one part gets mixed with a chocolate mixture to make the chocolate batter.

And then the two batters get layered, alternating back-and-forth between the two, in a Bundt pan.

The chocolate batter is thicker and heavier than the orange almond olive oil batter, and so without any extra work, the batters marble themselves in the pan in exquisite patterns, which feels a little bit like magic.

And the texture of this cake is especially lovely.

The crumb if fine and the olive oil keeps it incredibly moist on the interior, while the exterior develops a sort of delicate and irresistible almost-crunch.

From the outside, it isn’t much to look at, but when you slice into it, each slice is effortlessly gorgeous!

It keeps beautifully for the better part of a week. And it might even be better the day after you bake it, which gives you plenty of flexibility for making it ahead of time.

The flavors make this a suitable dessert for anything from a dinner party to a casual afternoon get-together. It’s pretty much an anytime cake.

The cake isn’t too sweet, and the orange notes make it, for me, an especially good one to have for breakfast.

Which means there should be no problem dispatching the leftovers.

If there are any.