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.
- 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, vegetable, coconut, or blood orange evoo)
- 1 cup Fresh Orange Juice
- 3 Eggs
- 1 cup Sour Cream
- 1 - 2 teaspoons Orange Zest
-
- 1 cup Butter softened
- 1 - 8- ounce pkg. Cream Cheese softened
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Orange Zest
- 2 Tablespoons Fresh Orange Juice
- 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.
- Pour 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.
Pin on Pinterest:
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!
Hello, how do measure your flour?
Hi Marie. That is a great question! I scoop my flour and then level off but DO NOT pack it down. I hope that helps!
Just made this cake….fabulous! I love all your cake recipes!
Love to hear it! Thank you so much for trying my recipe. I appreciate it!
This is the best cake I’ve ever tasted. I can’t stop talking about it.
Hi Tara! That’s such great news! I am so happy you love it. Thank you for your kind comment.
Please tell me 1 cup is equal to how many grams?
I baked this for a birthday party and not a crumb remained. We loved it, thank you for the amazing recipe! My grocery store only had lemon infused olive oil, but that was my one change to the cake. Delicious!
Since cream cheese isn’t my favourite, I made an Italian meringue buttercream and sprinkled candied walnuts between the layers. It’s sacreligious for a chocolate fiend to admit, but this orange cake may be the best one I’ve ever eaten 🙂
Once again you made me look good! 🙂 This cake was so good and now I want to make all kinds of oil cakes. I was too lazy to go to the olive mill for the blood orange olive oil but next time I will definitely kick it up a notch with the flavored oil. It doesn’t need it though, yum!!
Hi! I made this for my son on his 1st birthday last week, it was delicious and he (and everyone else) loved it! I picked this recipe because oranges are his favorite. It really delivered; moist, tender, and fantastic orange flavor without having to use extract. Just a fantastic recipe overall. Thank you so much for sharing! I shared a picture on pintrest too.
https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/180284791318348826/activity/tried
We made this on Friday. It was fantastic. We did have to cook it several minutes longer than the recipe said, but that could have just been our oven. Came out great. Thanks for sharing this.
I live in a high altitude area of Utah, what changes would I make to the Orange cake recipe in order for it to work here? I would love to make the Orange cake for my family, it sounds divine.
This was the first cake I made from scratch and it came out so good! Can’t wait to make it again. Next time I’m skipping the icing, too sweet for me. I will try the glaze mentioned in the comments. Thanks so much!!
The cake batter is in a bundt pan in the oven now …. cannot wait to see the results. I veganized it so I hope my calculations and substitutions work out. I also reduced the amount of sugar and oil.
This cake is SO good! I used three eight inch pans and cooked for a few minutes more about 25 minutes in my oven..The frosting is amazing. I will make this again.
This cake recipe is outstanding! I’ve never been more impressed with a homemade cake that taste as moist and delicious as this one. If I could give it 10 stars I would. Thanks for sharing!
Awww I love to hear that, Karen! Thank you for trying it out and I am so happy you loved it. 🙂 I appreciate it!
What can I replace for sourcream?
I tried 1 cup of yogurt and 1 tsp of baking soda.
I baked this last evening. It came out delicious..soft and light. I almost made a major blunder…right before mixing the last batch of dry ingredients, I realised that I hadn’t added the eggs. So I simply beat the life out of them before folding them in and prayed. It came out so delicious. I also happened to put the whole batter in one pan so it took much longer to bake. The expressions on my friends faces when they took the first bite were priceless. Thank you for this recipe.
Cake flour or all purpose flour? This may have been addressed in a post, but I’m in a pinch about to go to the grocery store!
AWESOME!!!! Frosting makes enough to spread between layers which is a great option, however I decided to add marmalade between the layers instead. Definitely saving this recipe!
I made this cake for New Years Day dinner party. Everyone loved it, without exception. It has fantastic orange flavor, so it was worth the $12 I spent on the blood orange olive oil at my local shop. I will definitely make it again, and apply some things I learned. First, put parchment in the bottom of the cake pans to avoid sticking. It’s easy to do and good insurance. Second, I had to cook this WAY longer than the time in the recipe–probably because I used two 8-inch pans instead of three. Next time I will use three but I imagine it will still have to cook longer. I garnished with candied orange slices–easy to make and an elegant finish. Thank you for the delicious recipe!
What can i replace eggs with?
hello, ayushi! in my vegan recipes I generally replace every egg with 1 tbs linen seed+3tbs water. I also tried apple- and bananapiuree, but linen works better. would love to hear about other possibilities.
BEST CAKE I EVER MADE!!!! Thank you modern honey!!!! Our family’s new favorite cake!!! I am actually baking it again tonight.😃👍🏼
If you are using buttermilk instead of sour cream, do you use equal proportions? Thank you!
Any recommendations for adding an herb like rosemary?
Is this recipe okay to make a week ahead of time and freeze ?
Lovely cake, delicious flavors, excellent crumb! What a wonderful recipe. I used 3 x 8″ cake pans, avocado oil and it was glorious. Frequently I experiment with new recipes every time. Not with this one. It is worth doing again and again. Thank you.
Hi. I will be traveling in the car with this cake so I am planning on making a sheet cake. How long should I bake it? Thanks
This cake made look like a rock star at my daughter’s wedding on Saturday!!! It’s the best!!!! I love all your recipes. Goal in life is to make every single one. (Don’t see where I can post a pic.)
Cake flour or AP flour? What would you recommend?
I seldom succeed at baking deliciousness, but this recipe turned out fantastic!! It will become a go to cake in our family. Not one person was disappointed. Thank you!!
Just used this recipe to make the top tier of a 50th wedding anniversary cake. I put home made orange curd between the layers and a white buttercream flavored with edible orange oil. It was a smash hit with guests putting the other cake tiers in their provided to go boxes because the orange cake was gone.
I made this orange cake yesterday for my mom’s birthday and everyone LOVED it!. My mom sad it was the best cake she’s ever had in her entire life. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!!! (:
We had a huge supply of juicy oranges and I need to bring a cake to a function. I found your recipe after a quick google search and it sounds delightful. Now, I’m waiting patiently for my cake to be done.
Thanks for the tip in the blog about buttermilk or sour cream in the cake. I didn’t want to go to the store for sour cream, but I had buttermilk (the 9 yr old will frequently request/demand buttermilk pancakes, so it’s almost always in the house). I uses 1:1 substitution and am a little concerned that the batter is too wet. Thoughts?
Hi..thanks so much for this soooooo moist orange cake.
I bake this wkend…all were non stop aftering the table of this cake…thsnks for sharing.
Love from us…💖😁
I made this cake and let me tell you that it is the best tasting cake EVER!!!!! I can’t stop talking about how awesome it is! Thank you SO MUCH for this awesome recipe!
Started making it all the time
hello, what other substitute is there for the cream cheese frosting, im thinking of not making the cream cheese frosting, is there any other sort of icing that i can on top??
I used a buttercream flavored with edible orange essential oil. Everyone loved it. I also put an orange curd between the layers. It had an amazing clarity of flavor I’d never experienced before.
I have made this Orange cake several times and it always turns out delicious, one of the best cakes ever. I would like to try this cake with lemon. Can I substitute lemon juice for the orange juice? Everyone who taste this cake, raves over it and wants the recipe. Thanks for awesome recipe.
Are you using an all-purpose flour or a cake flour?
Salted or un-salted butter for the icing?
Hi, do you use fresh orange use from an orange or just a bottle of orange use?
Use fresh squeezed orange juice.
All the way from Cape Town South Africa…my family loved it, I was so happy it had sour cream in it, with that ingredient alone the cake had to turn out wonderful.
Hi,
I want to try out this cake. How ever I have a doubt on the cream cheese measurement. The recipe says 1-8 ounces of cream cheese. So shall I use 8 ounces ( 225 g) ?
It is absolutely amazing, within 40 min it is done from start to finish. My only variation is that I add 1 teaspoon of bicarb, and not 1.5 teaspoons. I think it has something to do with sea level, etc. I’m baking from Cape Town South Africa and this cake is such a hit at home, we are buying oranges by the bag and the hints are on going to have this cake made. I don’t layer it up, I use a rectangular glass dish and don’t even bother with the frosting topping as the cake is delish without it!
It’s a beautiful cake, made it last weekend for a friend’s baby shower and everyone loved it!!
A big BIG Thank you!
I have a question though, I did put a not-too-thick layer of frosting between the cakes and then all around.
But for some reason by the time I got it to the party, the in-between frosting had squeezed out from the sides.
Can you explain the correct method to frost a layered cake?
Best orange cake recipe! Thank you!
I made this yesterday and it was FANTASTIC! I topped it with candied cranberries and it was a hit! Even my mother in law (who would rather have a root canal than complement me) said it was delicious! Thanks!
This cake amazing! I was looking for an orange cake that was tender and not like a pound cake and i wanted to use cream cheese frosting and this fit the bill! I followed the recipe exactly- even ordered some blood orange olive oil from Amazon. It did take another 5-7 minutes to cook the layers (i used 9 inch rounds). The cake was super moist and tender with a nice crumb- and the frosting was nicely balanced with the tartness from the cream cheese and oranges.
I made it for Christmas and heard things like “this is the best cake I’ve ever had!” My son has already requested it for his birthday cake. This is definitely a keeper thank you!!
Hello, I plan to make this cake tonight and do not have sour cream at hand. Should I use the same quantity i.e. 1 cup for the buttermilk as well? Kindly reply.
I loved this cake…. I did it in the 3- 8″ pans and added layers of homemade orange curd between interior layers and fully iced the exterior! I used all fresh squeezed blood orange mixed with navel orange juice and zest and let it set in fridge 2 days before bringing back up to room temp and serving
Keeping it in “case” really added to the flavor layers….I had hoped to take some home for later but there was so little left and so many request for the recipe and couple for extra pieces… I have baked many cakes and I had to add this to my top 20 list. I loved it and so did my friends!
I tinted my butter cream a lovely orange, added 1 tsp pure orange extract and did a thick slick faced side icing ,orange curd center layers with dolloped pulled knife swirl on top…it sliced out like a dream and the colors and taste were over the moon!
Could you make this in a bundt cake pan?
can you make this cake in a 9×13 pan?
I made this yummy Lucius cake few hours back. My house smelled yummy just like the cake. Thanks for the recipe. Orange cake is such a moist cake. Loooooved it.
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!
I am sooooo bummed. My whole cake stuck to my greased pans. I’ve never had this happen. Thoughts ???
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 😍