I have been making this very easy and tasty orange cake for years. Over the years I have decreased the amount of sugar that I put in it, just because I don’t think that it needs too much sugar. Don’t worry, there is still sugar in it, just a bit less then when I started making it. It never lasts long in our house. I highly recommend using fresh oranges, their zest and squeezing them yourself. IF you are feeling lazy you can use store bought fresh orange juice, but the orange zest gives the cake a lovely taste and a nice colour which you will not be able to get with store bought orange juice.
Ingredients
Orange Cake
150g sugar
4 eggs
2 dl orange juice (approx. 2 oranges)
Zest of 2 oranges
1.5 dl sunflower oil
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla essence
Orange Icing
300g icing sugar
1.5 dl orange juice (approx 1.5 oranges)
Zest of 1 orange
Method
Heat the oven to 180C/fan, gas mark 4, and make sure that a shelf is in the middle of the oven where the cake is gonna be baking.
Beat eggs and sugar together in a bowl with an electric whisk. Then beat in the oil. Mix together the flour, baking powder and vanilla essence. I use vanilla powder, hence why I stir it into the flour. If you use vanilla in liquid form you can put it straight into the batter. Add the flour mixture into the already mixed together ingredients, alongside the fresh orange juice and orange zest.
Line a baking tray with baking paper. I use a baking tray which is approx 25 cm by 40 cm in size. Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 25 min.
Cool the cake down and then make the icing. Stir the oranges juice and zest into the icing sugar. Don’t add all the orange juice at once, add it bit for bit. This way you can stop when you think that the icing has the consistency you like.
The ingredients. Nothing special, you probably have these things in your kitchen. I squeezed and grated the orange zest before taking this picture.
This is the reason why there are not proper step by step pictures of the baking process. JJ wanted to help and is eyeing up the batter, which he did NOT get to eat. He actually has a bowl of rice crisp, which can not be seen in the picture. He loved helping me 🙂
Ready to put in the oven. It will be baking for about 25 min on 180C fan, gas mark 4.
Baked!
After cooling the cake down I made the icing. Super simple, icing sugar and fresh orange juice.
The icing ready to go on the cake!
I like icing, a lot of icing! Have to admit that I scraped a bit of it off when I gave JJ his piece, he is energetic enough as it is 😉
Enjoy!
I always lay tulips next to my cakes…nahh, but it sure looks pretty!
Iris Xx
Our Sleepy Smiles 