Name: Orange Cake with Fresh Orange Juice & Zest (the BEST ever!)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 95 min
Ingredients: 360 g self raising flour; 330 g castor sugar; 360 g butter (at room temperature); 6 eggs (at room temperature); 90 ml freshly squeezed orange juice; 4 oranges (grated rind only); ¼ tsp salt; ¾ tsp baking powder; 300 g shortening; 600 g icing sugar; 1 tsp orange zest (grated); Candied Orange Peel

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This homemade, bake-from-scratch orange cake recipe is one of my best recipes. It is adapted from my pound cake recipe and has a refreshingly rich, fresh orange flavor from fresh orange juice and grated orange zest.

A true and tried homemade recipe, I have baked this moist orange cake so many times and have perfected the recipe for various baking pan sizes. All you need to do is follow the cake tin guides in my recipe card below be on your way to baking the best orange cake everyone is going to rave about!

A round cake with two slices cut out onto white plates. — ***Super yummy, moist, and flavorful orange cake with orange zest buttercream frosting and candied orange peel decoration***.

This orange cake has a moist and firm texture, making it most suitable for stacking and even carving. It is perfect for birthdays and weddings!

Seen on this page is the image of the cake baked into a layer cake, filled and frosted with orange buttercream frosting and decorated with homemade candied orange peel.

How to Make
Notes
Like this easy cake recipe? Here are my other posts you should also check out
Recipe (Printable)

How to Make

Ingredients

Cake

Self raising flour + baking powder + salt
Castor sugar
Butter (at room temperature)
Eggs (at room temperature)
Freshly squeezed orange juice + orange zest

Frosting & decoration

Buttercream frosting made using shortening
Grated orange zest
Candied orange peels

Mixing the cake batter

Start by grating the zest of the oranges and setting it aside. And then cut the oranges and squeeze the juice into a measuring cup. Set aside.

A poster of 6 images showing how to mix batter. — Preparing the cake batter for the homemade orange cake

Combine sugar and butter in a medium mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Beat both until they turn light and fluffy. This should take a good 2 minutes (scrape the sides of the bowl at least twice).
Next, add the eggs. These should be added one at a time, making sure they are well incorporated before adding more. Scrape the sides of the bowl.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Fold in the dry ingredients into the creamed wet ingredients mixture in 3 batches.
Alternate each batch with the orange juice, staring and ending with flour.
And finally, fold in the grated orange zest.
Pour the orange cake batter into 2 prepared cake tins (well greased and lined cake pans). Bake until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the centers come out without any wet batter sticking to it. A few moist crumbs is fine. Remove the cakes from the oven onto a wire rack (cooling rack) and cool completely before frosting.

Frosting the cake

This moist orange layer cake goes very well with buttercream frosting or cream cheese frosting. It will also match perfectly with any chocolate-based icings like chocolate ganache or chocolate icing.

I chose to frost mine with orange zest buttercream made entirely with shortening (instead of butter) and powdered sugar. This is why you can see that the buttercream is white instead of the normal pale yellow color of buttercream. The shortening can always be substituted with butter. See my buttercream recipe here.

I decorated the orange cake with a simple buttercream design and homemade candied orange peels.

Decorating the cake with simple palette knife design

A poster of 4 images showing how to decorate with buttercream. — Covering and decorating the orange cake with orange buttercream frosting

To start the orange cake decoration, prepare your buttercream. Sandwich the cake layers with buttercream and give the stacked cake layers a crumb coat. Refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.
Apply a second layer of buttercream, this time a thicker coating. At this stage, the buttercream layer does not have to be entirely smooth on the cake. Suffice if it is generally well coated as shown above.
To make the horizontal lines on the cake, I used a palette knife. You can also use a jam knife that has a rounded end. Place the cake on a turntable and start by placing your knife at the base of the cake. The knife should be touching the buttercream but only lightly.
The next step requires you to use both hands. One to turn the turntable while the other hand to hold the knife and gently move it up the sides of the cake, marking the horizontal lines pattern on the sides of the cake as you turn the turntable. You don't have to lift the knife. Just continue moving the knife in a slightly slanted horizontal position as you move it up the sides of the cake. In marking the lines, make sure they are close to one another. They should not be overlapping and not too far apart that there is a gap between each line. The lines look the best when the width is consistent all around.

Making patterns with buttercream. — Easy decorating design for the easy orange cake

Also, when marking the lines, there could be bulges of icing that are formed along the horizontal lines as shown above.
To remove them, use your knife to gently scrape them off. Redo the horizontal line if necessary.
Next is the cake top. Make similar lines in a circular pattern on the cake top, starting from the sides to the center.
Once that is done, clean the sides of your cake board of any icing marks.

Adding the candied orange peels decoration

Poster showing a round cake covered in buttercream and decorated with candied peels. — Simple orange cake design, perfect for birthdays and even weddings!

Prepare the candied orange peels in advance.
Arrange them on top of the cake as shown. Press them down lightly with the back of a spoon so that they get attached to the icing.
For the cake border, arrange a single layer of the candied fruit peel all around the base. Press them lightly into the icing so that they remain in place.
And that's pretty much how I decorated the orange layer cake with orange flavored buttercream and homemade candied peels. A simple orange cake design for birthdays, weddings and any special occasion.

Notes

Make sure your cake tins are well greased and lined

This may sound unimportant, but trust me, nothing is more frustrating than having a beautifully baked cake stuck to the cake tin. I normally prepare my cake tins by applying a layer of shortening and then dusting with flour.
Well prepared pan help release cakes very quickly from the tins, but it is important for every nook and corner of the cake tin to be well greased or there is a high chance for parts of the cake to be stuck to the tin at the not-so-well greased parts.
You can also line your tins with parchment paper, the choice is up to you so long as your cake tins are well prepared. You can see the many ways of lining cake tins in my post here.

Use unwaxed oranges

Fresh oranges give better citrus flavor to the cake and un-waxed ones are very important as you don’t want waxed orange rind in your cakes! Orange rind is basically the thin orange layer on the skin of an orange.
When taking the rind, you can use a grater to grate only the orange part of the skin. The white part (white pith) underneath the orange layer is bitter and you would definitely want to avoid grating that into your cake.
If you don’t have a grater, use a sharp knife to slice the orange skin layer of the fruit (carefully avoiding the white layer underneath) and then chop it up into tiny bits with a knife.
As for the orange juice in the recipe, always use freshly squeezed orange juice. You can add the pulps in the fresh juice as well but be sure to avoid the seeds! It's always easier to grate an orange before squeezing out its juice, so be sure to process your oranges in this order.

If you wish to double or triple this easy orange cake recipe, follow the tin size guide in the recipe card

Each calculated recipe produces 2 layers of orange cake that measure approximately 2 inches high each. It is advisable to not bake all the batter in one cake tin as the cake would take much longer to bake in the middle causing the sides to be dry.
Also, if you intend to make cakes larger than 10 inches in diameter, it is highly advisable to use cake strips or a heating core. These will prevent the sides of the cakes from drying out due to longer baking time for larger cakes. See my post here on how to achieve leveled cakes to learn more about using cake strips and heating cores.

Don’t over bake the cakes

Baking time is another very important success factor for this orange layer cake recipe. If you want a soft, fluffy, and moist cake with tender crumb, avoid over baking.
Place the cake on the 3rd rack in your oven and check if the cake is done at least 5 to 10 minutes before the baking time is up by inserting a long skewer in the center of the cake.
If the skewer comes out without any wet batter sticking to it, the cake is done and can be removed from the oven. Ideally, there should be soft cake crumbs sticking to your skewer.
If the skewer comes out totally clean, the cake could have been over cooked. Also, when the cake is done, the sides will pull away from the tin.

Storing the cake

This moist orange cake can be served on the very same day it is baked, even while it is still warm (without any frosting). It is also equally good when baked in advance and stored in the fridge until it is ready for use, within one week.
For best results, when storing the cake in the fridge, wrap it tightly with plastic wrap while it is still warm and refrigerate. Wrapping the warm cake warm locks and distributes the moisture in the cake, making in soft and moist after refrigeration. When you need to use it, remove the cake from the fridge and with the cling wrap still intact, let it warm up to room temperature. Remove the wrapping only after the cake has reached room temperature to prevent condensation on the cake which can reduce its shelf life.
Leftovers of this cake can be stored at room temperature for a good 4 to 5 days provided it is handled without any moisture. The leftovers can last up to one week if refrigerated. If you wish to use this cake for carving, the cake is best left to rest for at least one day after baking for the texture to stabilize for easy carving with fewer crumbs.

Like this easy cake recipe? Here are my other posts you should also check out

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my orange cake recipe.

A round cake covered in white buttercream on a gold cake stand

Orange Cake with Fresh Orange Juice & Zest (the BEST ever!)

A bake from scratch orange cake with buttercream frosting and candied peels. It's deliciously moist and fluffy and very easy to make too!

4.92 from 12 votes

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Orange Cake

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Decorating Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Yield: 2 Seven inches round cakes / Six inches square cakes

Author: Priya Maha

Metric - US Customary