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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.
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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!
I made this yummy Lucius cake few hours back. My house smelled yummy just like the cake. Thanks for the recipe. Orange cake is such a moist cake. Loooooved it.
Could you make this in a bundt cake pan?
can you make this cake in a 9×13 pan?
I loved this cake…. I did it in the 3- 8″ pans and added layers of homemade orange curd between interior layers and fully iced the exterior! I used all fresh squeezed blood orange mixed with navel orange juice and zest and let it set in fridge 2 days before bringing back up to room temp and serving
Keeping it in “case” really added to the flavor layers….I had hoped to take some home for later but there was so little left and so many request for the recipe and couple for extra pieces… I have baked many cakes and I had to add this to my top 20 list. I loved it and so did my friends!
I tinted my butter cream a lovely orange, added 1 tsp pure orange extract and did a thick slick faced side icing ,orange curd center layers with dolloped pulled knife swirl on top…it sliced out like a dream and the colors and taste were over the moon!
Hello, I plan to make this cake tonight and do not have sour cream at hand. Should I use the same quantity i.e. 1 cup for the buttermilk as well? Kindly reply.
This cake amazing! I was looking for an orange cake that was tender and not like a pound cake and i wanted to use cream cheese frosting and this fit the bill! I followed the recipe exactly- even ordered some blood orange olive oil from Amazon. It did take another 5-7 minutes to cook the layers (i used 9 inch rounds). The cake was super moist and tender with a nice crumb- and the frosting was nicely balanced with the tartness from the cream cheese and oranges.
I made it for Christmas and heard things like “this is the best cake I’ve ever had!” My son has already requested it for his birthday cake. This is definitely a keeper thank you!!
I made this yesterday and it was FANTASTIC! I topped it with candied cranberries and it was a hit! Even my mother in law (who would rather have a root canal than complement me) said it was delicious! Thanks!
Best orange cake recipe! Thank you!
It’s a beautiful cake, made it last weekend for a friend’s baby shower and everyone loved it!!
A big BIG Thank you!
I have a question though, I did put a not-too-thick layer of frosting between the cakes and then all around.
But for some reason by the time I got it to the party, the in-between frosting had squeezed out from the sides.
Can you explain the correct method to frost a layered cake?
It is absolutely amazing, within 40 min it is done from start to finish. My only variation is that I add 1 teaspoon of bicarb, and not 1.5 teaspoons. I think it has something to do with sea level, etc. I’m baking from Cape Town South Africa and this cake is such a hit at home, we are buying oranges by the bag and the hints are on going to have this cake made. I don’t layer it up, I use a rectangular glass dish and don’t even bother with the frosting topping as the cake is delish without it!
Hi,
I want to try out this cake. How ever I have a doubt on the cream cheese measurement. The recipe says 1-8 ounces of cream cheese. So shall I use 8 ounces ( 225 g) ?