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Orange Cake

Felix Intelegando Updated All recipes

Orange cake, and cakes with other citrus fruits, has a lovely mix of sour and sweet that gives a good result almost every time. This one is easy to make: the ingredients are simply mixed together, in a mixer if you have one, and when the cake is cold you pour icing or melted chocolate over it. Orange also tastes superb with chocolate, doesn’t it?

Iced orange loaf cake on a white plate, two slices cut to show a fine golden crumb, with a whole orange and an orange half beside it
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Iced orange loaf cake on a white plate, two slices cut to show a fine golden crumb, with a whole orange and an orange half beside it

Recipe

Orange Cake

Cook
1 hr

Ingredients

Method

  1. Turn on the oven at 175 ° C.
  2. Bring the baking margarine, sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl and stir all together.
  3. Add the eggs one at a time and stir thoroughly in each adding.
  4. Stir the flour in – start at low speed then gradually increasing until you achieve a lump free dough
  5. Add orange peel, and juice and lemon juice onto the dough and stir.
  6. Pour the insides of the bowl upside down on a lubricated or coated baking paper or a slip of light material.
  7. Placed it on the oven for approx. 1 hour. Insert a meat pin, or a knitting stick into the cake to find out if it the innermost part of the cake is cook.
  8. Let the cake cool a bit before taking it out of the mold.
  9. Stir an icing of icing sugar and 1 tbsp. water – add more water if necessary. Or melt the chocolate.
  10. Pour the icing or melted chocolate on top of the cold cake. Sprinkle, if necessary, with chopped nuts.

Step by step, in pictures

The six main moves from the card, from creaming the margarine to icing the cold cake.

  1. Line drawing of a wooden spoon stirring a smooth creamed mixture in a round mixing bowlStir margarine, sugar and vanilla sugar
  2. Line drawing of a hand cracking an egg into a bowl of smooth batter, with a whisk resting in the bowlAdd the eggs one at a time
  3. Line drawing of a hand holding a sieve that sifts flour into a bowl of batter, with a hand mixer standing beside the bowlMix in the flour until smooth
  4. Line drawing of a hand grating an orange over a glass bowl of batter, with an orange, a cut orange half and a citrus squeezer beside itAdd orange zest and the juices
  5. Line drawing of cake batter pouring from a tilted bowl into a loaf tin lined with baking paperPour the batter into the tin
  6. Line drawing of white icing pouring from a tilted bowl onto a loaf cake that sits on a wire cooling rackIce the cake once it is cold

How to make a simple orange cake

Stir soft margarine with sugar and vanilla sugar, beat in four eggs one at a time, then mix in the flour until the batter has no lumps. Stir in grated orange zest, orange juice and a little lemon juice, pour the batter into a greased or paper-lined tin and bake at 175 °C for about an hour. Test the middle with a skewer, let the cake cool, then finish it with icing or melted chocolate.

Why there is no baking powder in this orange cake

You may wonder why the ingredient list has no raising agent. In this cake the eggs do the work. It belongs to the pound-cake family, where fat, sugar and flour go in by roughly equal weight and the lift comes from beating air into the margarine and sugar and then into the eggs. That is why the creaming and the one-egg-at-a-time step are worth doing properly, and why the flour starts at low speed.

Icing or chocolate: two ways to finish it

  • White icing. Stir it with a tablespoon of water and add a little more water only if it is too thick to pour.
  • Melted dark chocolate. Pour it over the top and sprinkle chopped nuts or almonds on before it sets. This turns the same cake into an orange and chocolate cake.

Other cakes from the same batter

The batter is a plain base, so it takes other flavours well:

  • Lemon cake. If you prefer lemon, swap the orange for lemon, ideally with freshly squeezed juice.
  • Marble cake. Colour part of the batter with cocoa and swirl it through.
  • Old-fashioned fruit or chocolate cake. Fold in cocktail cherries, apple pieces, chunks of chocolate or marzipan.

Want another everyday cake? Try this banana cake. For more Danish baking, there is brunsviger, the Danish coffee cake, and Danish raspberry squares. Leftover oranges can go into orange jam.

Quick answers about orange cake

How long does orange cake take to bake?

About 1 hour at 175 °C. It is done when a skewer pushed into the middle comes out without wet batter.

Which tin should I use?

The recipe does not name a size. Comparable Danish orange cakes with similar quantities are baked in a tin of about 1.5 litres or a round tin of 22 to 24 cm. Grease it or line it with baking paper.

Can I make it without a mixer?

Yes. A mixer makes it quicker, but you can stir everything together in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Beat well after each egg.

When should I ice the cake?

Only when it is completely cold. Let it cool a little in the tin, turn it out, and wait before pouring over the icing or chocolate.

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