Orange Juice Cake

This orange juice cake is bursting with citrus flavor! It’s a one-bowl made from scratch bundt cake that goes so well with a cup of hot tea or coffee and it’s so easy to make.

Takes just 15 minutes to prepare the batter, and then it’s baked in the oven in less than an hour.

I love the citrus season. As I try to eat as seasonal as possible, the citrus season feels like a celebration! And as you can image, citrus fruits are the only fruits that we currently eat. I love Pomelo, cumquat, clementine, grapefruit, and orange!

Oh and my favorite? I can’t decide, but I’m obsessed with cumquat and Blood oranges!

Today’s recipe is a very simple and easy cake flavored with fresh, sweet, and tangy orange juice.

The texture of this cake is just incredible! It’s quite dense but soft at the same time, and it’s not meant to be super moist and fluffy. It’s just so perfect with a cup of hot tea (or coffee if you prefer).

It’s great for lunch boxes, and to feed the hungry kids that come home after school and ask about dessert after a meal.

This cake is a favorite in our house. In fact, my Mum and my sister in law are obsessed with it! Ever since I posted this recipe on the blog, they have been making it all the time. They probably made it over 10 times last year, I’m not kidding!

The Ingredients

You only need 8 simple ingredients to make this orange juice cake. I also love the fact that butter is needed here, I use oil instead. So here’s what you’ll need:

How to Make Orange Juice Cake

This is a very simple cake to make, it’s a one-bowl cake which means that there won’t be much washing up to do after baking. And it requires very simple ingredients.

Step 1.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk sugar with vegetable oil and eggs.

Mix in the vanilla extract. I usually either use vanilla pods and I scrape out the beans (don’t throw them away after one use, I usually use them 3 times!), or vanilla bean paste which is quite strong so be careful with the amounts that you’re using. Vanilla extract also works perfectly fine, you can either use the liquid extract or the powder one. 

Step 2.

Add the dry ingredients. Sifted flour, baking powder, and salt. I also like to add the orange zest at this point.

To zest an orange, a clementine, or a lemon, I use this citrus zester. You may have not seen this model before, but it’s the best that I’ve ever used and I will never change my mind! To zest an orange, you only need the orange bits so you have to take out only the very surface really lightly. The white bits are bitter, and you don’t want that in your cake.

Step 3.

Mix in the freshly squeezed orange juice, and make sure not to overmix the batter. Overmixing the batter will result in a very dense brick-like cake.

Step 4. 

Grease and flour the cake pan. I use my Mother’s really old cake pan that she bought in the 1970’s! It’s a beautiful 9-inch cake pan, but I would never use it without greasing it as imagine what if you bake a beautiful cake in it, and then once you try to pull it out it gets stuck? So to avoid a situation like this, ALWAYS prepare your bundt cake tin before using it.

If you’re using a new non-stick cake pan, then there’s no need to flour it. Just lightly brush some vegetable oil.

But a cake pan like mine needs to be greased with a little bit of vegetable oil, then floured lightly. This ensures that my cake comes out easily without breaking.

Pour in the batter, and bake for 50 minutes at 356°F (180°C). Check if your cake is ready at 40-50 minutes, insert a toothpick in the center of the cake (obviously not the empty round part in the middle), and see if it comes out clean. If not, then bake for a bit longer.

Tip: Remember, that you should not under any circumstances open the oven door to check on the cake before the first 30 minutes pass as this won’t allow your cake to rise correctly.

The cake will beautifully crack and will have a vibrant color once baked.

Success Tips

• Always use fresh orange juice if possible. Whilst you could use store-bought bottled juice, I found that fresh orange juice tastes much best. 
• If you’re not so keen on oranges, you can substitute with any other kind of citrus instead. Grapefruit, lemon, and clementines work well.
• This cake is not too sweet, so before you think of reducing the amount of sugar please try my recipe first and then adjust to your preference the next time you bake it.
• The cake turns out quite dense, this is how it’s meant to be. If you prefer lighter cakes, then reduce the amount of the flour by ¼ a cup.

• Store the cake at room temperature covered in an air-tight cake container, or cover it with cling film if you don’t have a container that fits. If you leave the cake out without covering it, it will dry out.
• If you like spiced cakes, you could add spices like ground nutmeg and cloves.

Recommended Tools

• You will need a whisk or you can use a mixer. I always use my stand mixer to make cakes (it’s currently on a big sale!).
• Always use measuring spoons and measuring cups when baking or even cooking food. This will ensure that you get the recipe right!
• You will also need a citrus zester, this is the only citrus zester that I will ever use. You may have not come across it before, but it’s really worth checking out. It makes sure that you only get the nice orange bits when zesting an orange instead of getting the white bits that are bitter.
• Spatula – I have this set.
• Flour sifter to make sure that your flour is nice and airy.
• Bundt cake pan – this is not the one shown in the images but it’s what I currenly use and recommend.

More Easy Cake Recipes To Try

• Easy banana cake
• Vegan carrot cake
• Upside down plum cake
• Apple Sharlotka cake

This recipe first appeared on Little Sunny Kitchen on March 9th, 2019 but was updated with new images and more info on January 1st, 2020.