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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 recently substituted Greek yogurt for sour cream in a different recipe and it was fantastic… going to make this cake for my wife’s birthday, has anyone else used Greek yogurt instead?
Yes. I have read many articles and now use full fat Greek yogurt to substitute for sour cream when baking and also in dips etc. because sour cream is hard to find where a I live. Works fine.
Are you using cake flour?
I am a big fan of your cakes!
PSA!! If you haven’t tried her coconut cake stop what you are doing and make it now!! You will be happy you did!
Due to the coronavirus shelter in place, my family is limiting grocery store runs, so my Easter meal was basically a “pantry challenge”. I selected this recipe because I always make a citrus flavored dessert for Easter (usually lemon or lime) but was limited to ingredients I already had at home. I found an old bottle of orange blossom olive oil I purchased a few years ago, but tossed it because I didn’t want to risk anyone getting sick. Instead, I used extra virgin olive oil, doubled the amount of orange zest and used Greek yogurt instead of butter milk or sour cream. The cake turned out AMAZINGLY! My family absolutely loved it. The cake was extremely moist and the orange flavor was perfect. There’s only five of us, my husband, me and our three young adults, but the entire cake is already gone…minus a piece my husband hid in the freezer for himself. I will definitely make again, maybe with the orange blossom olive oil and a touch of orange liqueur. However, the cake was wonderful as made. Thanks for the recipe!
Want to try this soon. Can i use buttermilk instead of sour cream.?
I love baking cakes from scratch. This has to be the best cake I have made by far. So delicious and moist. I did double the frosting so it was extra thick!! The family absolutely loved this cake! I will definitely be making this again! ????
I rarely review recipes but this cake was worth it. Due to the coronavirus shelter in place, my family is limiting grocery store runs, so my Easter meal was basically a “pantry challenge”. I selected this recipe because I always make a citrus flavored dessert for Easter (usually lemon or lime) but was limited to ingredients I already had at home. I found an old bottle of orange blossom olive oil I purchased a few years ago, but tossed it because I didn’t want to risk anyone getting sick. Instead, I used extra virgin olive oil and doubled the amount of orange zest. The cake turned out AMAZING! My family absolutely loved it. The cake was extremely moist and the orange flavor was perfect. There’s only five of us, my husband, me and our three young adults, but the entire cake is already gone…minus a piece my husband hid in the freezer for himself. I will definitely make again, maybe with the orange blossom olive oil and a touch of orange liqueur. However, the cake was wonderful as made. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m a chocolate cake kind of girl, but I think this cake may have converted me! Have made it twice now and will definitely be making it again and again 🙂
roughly how many oranges does it take to obtain the required amount of fresh juice/zest?
I found it took 4 cara cara oranges (so medium size?) to get almost exactly what I needed.
the flavor was great! unbelievably super-duper moist cake, too.
instructions didn’t include to flour the pans after greasing and i forgot on my own, so the cakes didn’t release from the pans. had to recycle into a ‘bread’ pudding that tasted quite good. looking forward to next time when i remember to grease *and flour* the pans.
thank you for the recipe!
It’s an amazing recipe. I baked this for my husband’s birthday and he absolutely loved it. All of our friends loved it too. Olive oil worked like magic for this recipe ????
I am sooooo bummed. My whole cake stuck to my greased pans. I’ve never had this happen. Thoughts ???
It helps to use parchment paper in your cake pans, they’ll come out easier.
I made this cake for my fiance’s birthday a couple years ago and it was DELICIOUS!! He still talks about that cake to this day. I was going to make it for Easter this year however I have a gluten intolerance. Does anyone know if I can sub GF 1-1 All purpose flour for the regular flour? Or will the flavor/texture get too strange? Thanks
This is an excellent recipe with a perfect amount of orange flavor. I just made this for my spouse’s birthday party and it was a HUGE hit. I used regular extra virgin olive oil, and I was nervous that we would be able to taste olive oil in the finished cake. Needless to say, I couldn’t taste olive oil but the cake was the extremely moist and decadent!