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Best Orange Cake
A moist, tender fresh orange cake with a sweet orange cream cheese frosting. How to make the perfect orange cake!
Oh, how I love baking cakes. Since my kids were little, I always let them choose their ultimate cake flavor. They would come up with some highly creative, interesting ideas! Since my daughter loves all things fruit, she always asks for a fresh fruit cake.
She was turning 10 and requested a homemade orange cake with orange cream cheese frosting. I emailed my sister-in-law, who is an incredible cake baker, and she sent over this recipe. I have tweaked it over the years but it the perfect orange cake recipe.
This fluffy Orange Cake made with fresh orange juice and orange zest gives it that perfect amount of orange flavor. The frosting is a combination of sweet cream butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and orange zest. You can completely cover the cake with frosting for a traditional cake or if you love the look of a naked cake, just do a nice “crumb coat” on the outside of the cake. This makes a beautiful naked orange cake!
To make this Orange Cake extra special, I used a Blood Orange Olive Oil from the Queen Creek Olive Oil. This infuses the cake with a light fragrant blood orange flavor. You can buy straight from their website HERE.
Tips for making the Best Orange Cake:
- Start with the dry ingredients. Stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. The two leavening agents – baking soda and baking powder – give the cake a nice rise.
- Adding Oil makes the orange cake extra moist. You can use extra-virgin olive oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, or coconut oil. My favorite thing to use is the Blood Orange Olive Oil from the Queen Creek Olive Oil. You can find it HERE.
- Use Orange Juice and Fresh Orange Zest to impart orange flavor into the cake. This gives it an all-natural orange flavor. A zester is an essential tool in the kitchen to ensure you only get the orange peel, instead of the bitter white rind.
- Sour Cream helps to create a perfect texture. By using sour cream or buttermilk, it creates a tender crumb.
- Bake just until a toothpick comes out clean in the center of the cake. If you want the cake to be extra moist, you may brush the layers with a simple syrup, which is a water-sugar syrup.
- Once the cakes are cool, frost with homemade orange frosting. The frosting is made by whipping butter and cream cheese for 4 minutes until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar, orange juice, and orange zest.
MORE FAVORITE CAKE RECIPES FROM MODERN HONEY:
- LEMON Olive Oil Cake
- VANILLA Cupcakes
- YELLOW Cake with Chocolate Frosting
- Love at First Sight CHOCOLATE Cake
- Chocolate RASPBERRY Cake
- COCONUT Cake
- RED VELVET Cake
- Jeff’s Best BANANA Cake
- Southern CARAMEL Cake
- BERRY Chantilly Cream Cake
Click to find some of my favorite cake pans — 8-inch cake pan and 9-inch cake pan.
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Orange Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups Flour
- 1 3/4 cups Sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 3/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Oil (extra-virgin olive oil, canola, or blood orange evoo)
- 1 cup Fresh Orange Juice
- 3 Eggs
- 1 cup Sour Cream
- 1 - 2 teaspoons Orange Zest
Orange Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 1 cup Butter softened
- 1 - 8- ounce pkg. Cream Cheese softened
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Orange Zest
- 2 Tablespoons Fresh Orange Juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- In another mixing bowl, cream oil, orange juice, eggs, sour cream, and orange zest until completely mixed.
- Fold in dry ingredients, mixing only until combined.
- Generously grease your non-stick cake pans with non-stick cooking spray or grease them with butter and flour. Pour batter into greased (3) 8-inch or (2) 9-inch cake pans.
- Bake for 19-21 minutes, depending on the size of pan used. To test if the cakes are done, insert a toothpick in the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cakes are done. Let cool for 15 minutes before removing from pans.
- To make frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and cream cheese for 4 minutes until light and fluffy. Scrape down sides of the bowl halfway through mixing. Stir in powdered sugar, orange zest, and orange juice.
- Once cakes are cooled, frost with orange cream cheese frosting.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Pin on Pinterest:
That girl, who was turning ten years old, just graduated a few days ago from high school. Of course, I heard from older mothers about how fast time goes but still wasn’t fully prepared. I am so excited for her to experience college life but my heart aches to think of her leaving home. The day after graduation, we took off for Kauai Hawaii to celebrate her graduation. This is just what the family needed – some good relaxing family time while filling our days with some serious adventure! You can follow along on instagram @modern_honey. Happy Baking, my friends!
If you are using buttermilk instead of sour cream, do you use equal proportions? Thank you!
BEST CAKE I EVER MADE!!!! Thank you modern honey!!!! Our family’s new favorite cake!!! I am actually baking it again tonight.????????????
What can i replace eggs with?
hello, ayushi! in my vegan recipes I generally replace every egg with 1 tbs linen seed+3tbs water. I also tried apple- and bananapiuree, but linen works better. would love to hear about other possibilities.
I made this cake for New Years Day dinner party. Everyone loved it, without exception. It has fantastic orange flavor, so it was worth the $12 I spent on the blood orange olive oil at my local shop. I will definitely make it again, and apply some things I learned. First, put parchment in the bottom of the cake pans to avoid sticking. It’s easy to do and good insurance. Second, I had to cook this WAY longer than the time in the recipe–probably because I used two 8-inch pans instead of three. Next time I will use three but I imagine it will still have to cook longer. I garnished with candied orange slices–easy to make and an elegant finish. Thank you for the delicious recipe!
AWESOME!!!! Frosting makes enough to spread between layers which is a great option, however I decided to add marmalade between the layers instead. Definitely saving this recipe!
Cake flour or all purpose flour? This may have been addressed in a post, but I’m in a pinch about to go to the grocery store!
I baked this last evening. It came out delicious..soft and light. I almost made a major blunder…right before mixing the last batch of dry ingredients, I realised that I hadn’t added the eggs. So I simply beat the life out of them before folding them in and prayed. It came out so delicious. I also happened to put the whole batter in one pan so it took much longer to bake. The expressions on my friends faces when they took the first bite were priceless. Thank you for this recipe.
What can I replace for sourcream?
I tried 1 cup of yogurt and 1 tsp of baking soda.
This cake recipe is outstanding! I’ve never been more impressed with a homemade cake that taste as moist and delicious as this one. If I could give it 10 stars I would. Thanks for sharing!
Awww I love to hear that, Karen! Thank you for trying it out and I am so happy you loved it. 🙂 I appreciate it!
This cake is SO good! I used three eight inch pans and cooked for a few minutes more about 25 minutes in my oven..The frosting is amazing. I will make this again.