Filled with the fresh and bright flavour of oranges, this cake is a delight with its moist and a tender crumb. Fruits cakes with fresh seasonal fruit juice are the most refreshing kinds of cakes — a delight to have right out of the oven when they are still warm. And they need no elaborate icing and frosting to add to the flavour.

The recipe is simple, since all the wet ingredients are added together, except the buttermilk, mixed with a beater or in a food processor, like I used. Then all the dry ingredients are sieved together and added to the batter. Mixed some more and the batter is ready to go into the oven.

The key to the moist softness is the use of buttermilk and cake flour, both very easy things you can make at home. I will go into this in the method and let us just dive into the recipe of this incredibly refreshing cake.

Ingredients

3 cups (315g) sifted cake flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (230g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

1 and 2/3 cups (333g) granulated sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons orange zest

1/2 cup (120ml) fresh orange juice

1/2 cup (120ml) buttermilk, at room temperature

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Grease the inside of a 10 inch Bundt pan with butter or oil. I had a smaller Bundt pan so I used a round pan too. Set aside.

Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda together. Added the baking powder, baking soda and salt together in the ingredients bowl, so you will not see them separately in the first photo.

To get the orange zest, I used a peeler to peel an orange and then cut it up into very fine strands of peel, see picture 2.

Using a handheld or stand mixer or food processor, beat the butter on high speed until smooth and creamy. Add the sugar and beat for two minutes or until creamed together. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.

Add the eggs and the vanilla and orange. Beat until combined. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk and mixing each addition just until incorporated. Do not over mix. Add the orange zest and mix it one last time.

Pour/spoon the batter evenly into the baking pan. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Since all ovens are different, mine was read in exactly 60 minutes, and around 40 minutes mark I lowered the head just a little to 150°C.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes inside the pan.

Slice and serve while still warm.

Cake flour: This is very easy to make, take one cup of flour, remove two tablespoons of flour from it and add two tablespoons of corn flour. Sift it together. I measured three cups of flour, took our six tablespoons and added six tablespoons of corn flour and then sifted it together.

Buttermilk: Add 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of white vinegar or fresh lemon juice to a liquid measuring cup (or just a regular cup large), add 3/4 cup milk. Allow mixture to sit for 5 minutes, then use in the recipe. n

The writer Instagrams @the_experimentalcook

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 15th, 2022