This Orange Juice Cake is bursting with citrus flavor in every bite! This quick and easy recipe can be prepared in 20 minutes. Then it’s baked for an hour in the oven, filling your home with a warm citrus aroma.
Every winter when the weather turns frigid, I start craving citrus. You would think these cravings would arrive in the summer months, but no. There’s something about cold weather that makes me crave what I call “sunshine food”. You know, those citrus foods that taste like bursts of sunshine in every bite? This Orange Juice Cake is the perfect “Sunshine Food” example. Made with orange juice and orange zest, the citrus flavor is perfectly intense.
Let me tell you something about Orange Juice Cake. First of all, my family asks me to make it often. Maybe it’s because it is one of the few cakes I allow them to have for breakfast. It’s not really a breakfast cake, but I think it could pass for coffee cake. And coffee cake is more than allowed for breakfast, right? I mean really, when you make a bundt cake it’s almost like a giant muffin. Muffins are acceptable for breakfast so cake should be as well.
Secondly, Orange Juice Cake is one of the easiest cakes to make. You just need a few minutes of incorporating the ingredients together with an electric mixer, and you’re good. Once you pour batter into the prepared pan, setting your timer and forgetting it for an hour is your only job. However, good luck forgetting it. The scent of this cake, bursting with orange flavor, will make you unable to think of anything else.
I hope you’ll decide to make this cake soon. If you do, allow me to share a few tips to help your Orange Juice Cake be 100% perfect.
Tips for the Best From Scratch Orange Juice Cake
1. Prepare your cake pan
This tip is first because it’s the most important. Spray the bundt cake pan thoroughly with Pam Baking Spray. Taking your beautiful cake out of the bundt pan, only to have it stick and fall apart is a travesty. Prepare the pan so the cake slides out easily when baking is done.
Lisa at The Bearfoot Baker has a brilliant “at home” hack for replacing commercial baking spray. Check out her instructions for Substitute Cooking Spray. A mixture of vegetable oil, shortening and all purpose flour is all you need. Use a basting brush to apply it to your pan, and boom, the pan is greased and floured. You’ll have a bundt cake that releases easy, without fail.
2. Substitute your citrus
This is called Orange Juice Cake and Orange Juice and Zest are some of the main ingredients, but that doesn’t mean you have to stick to orange. Substitute the zest for any variety of citrus. Consider grapefruit, lemon, clementine or lime zest. Truly, zest from any of these citrus fruits pairs so nicely with the orange juice.
If you need an inexpensive zester that works well, I really like this wide citrus zester from Oxo.
3. Slice and cover
To keep the Orange Juice Cake moist and delicious, once you make the first slice, cover what remains with plastic wrap. This cake is so tender on the inside, but if it isn’t covered it does dry out quickly on the edges.
Orange Juice Cake Topping Ideas
A simple topping of sifted confectioners sugar makes this quick and easy cake complete. However, if you’d rather have a glaze, the citrus glaze from these Orange Drop Cookies can’t be beat. It would be a perfect addition to the burst of citrus flavor already found in each bite of cake.
In addition to glaze, Orange Juice Cake served with homemade whipped topping is an option. Especially when sliced warm, a cake like this with whipped cream is delectable. I think homemade whipped topping is a great way to finish off any bundt cake!
I hope you will give this from scratch Orange Juice Cake recipe a try today. It’s a wonderful way to add a bit of sunshine into your life when the days are a little dull and dark.
Craving more? Check out these cake recipes:
- I still dream about this Rustic Italian Spongecake with Cheesecake Filling
- You can have cake for breakfast! Check out this Breakfast Bundt Cake from Temecula Blogs
- TidyMom uses a yellow cake mix to make her amazing St Louis Style Gooey Butter Cake
- A cake mix pudding mixture makes this Ridiculous Vanilla Cake from Cookies & Cups extra good!
- Living Vegan has an Apple Crumb Cake with Powdered Sugar Glaze that is perfect for fall
Thanks for reading. Here’s the Orange Juice Cake recipe for your baking pleasure! I hope you’ll give it a try and enjoy!
Orange Juice Cake with Powdered Sugar
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 large eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup applesauce (1 cup vegetable oil total can be used instead of applesauce)
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
- 1 orange or 3 clementines zest of
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare a 10 inch fluted cake pan by spraying with baking spray (or using the homemade version mentioned above).
- In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, oil, applesauce, orange juice, vanilla and zest. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix on medium low, just until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake at 350°F for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before gently removing from pan onto a wire rack to cool. Once cooled, carefully place cake on a cake stand and top with sifted powdered sugar. Enjoy!
Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Eggs are not listed as an ingredient?
Oh wow – thank you so much for catching that! It’s 4 large eggs. I’ve updated the recipe.
Thanks again!
Wonderful cake. I made it for my quarantined Easter dinner by myself. I added a bit of chocolate minis 1/4 cup, a dash cinnamon and some apricot brandy 1 tbl.
Excellent. Thanks.
This was very good, I loved it.
I’ll make it again soon!
Making this cake right now. Can hardly wait to taste it!
Oh yay – I bet your house smells heavenly!
Trying your recipe for the 1st time today. I normally use the boxed cake mix, orange gelatin recipe.
Oh I’ve never tried that version – do you have a link to a recipe you like?
Hi there 🙂 this recipe looks delish! I don’t have an Indy cake tin at home though, would a normal 10 inch aluminium cake pan work? Or a smaller/bigger size, even?
Thanks! 🙂
Is that a 10 inch round pan? If you have 2 such pans maybe split the batter between the 2? If you tried it, how did it come out? I’m going to try it in a couple days.
Thanks! I’m so happy to have found a scratch recipe. We are temporarily housed without an electric mixer so this is perfect for me, plus we have a laden orange tree in the back yard. Making it for visitors this weekend.
Thank you for this recipe. We were just gifted some not so perfect oranges and I was looking for a recipe that relied more on the juice than the zest and this recipe was perfect.
Hi, How much orange juice and zest is needed? I only have the pulp juice and trying to access how much does your orange normally yields.
Would love to know where to find your cake stand! Do you know the brand?
I don’t know how I missed this I’m so sorry! I got it from a store called Nell Hills a few years ago. Unfortunately there is no brand listed.
Is it possible to provide your recipe in metric units? I have a weighing scale. I can’t figure out cups
I’m totally in love with this orange juice cake recipe. So flavorful and delicious. Plus, it makes your house smell fantastic. I’m constantly craving it when it’s fall. It indeed is a great way to add a bit of sunshine into our life. Perfect for breakfast or as dessert for afternoon tea. I often make this cake for my grandma when she comes to visit us. She adores this too. I follow similar recipe, and the result is always powerful. Though I need to confess to you that the first time I made this I failed miserably. But then really nailed it! Once I tried the ideal version of this cake, it really was an addiction (or perhaps “obsession”).
Thank you for sharing such a nice idea and all of your useful tips. All of them will surely help your readers to succeed. Keep the awesome recipes coming! I’m so lucky to have come across your blog.
p.s. Can’t wait to try your other cake recipes.
Isn’t it so good? It’s so easy too – and you are so right about the way it makes your house smell! Delectable!
You don’t mix the wet ingrents
Made it today but in a different shape.
Come out amazing. Baked 45 min was ready to go. Made the pictures but the is no way to attach them here, sorry
Made as-written with all oil. This is a wonderful cake with a lot of orange flavor. Don’t skimp on the zest of an orange! The outside of the cake is crunchy, but in a good way. Inside is very moist, likely due to the oil. This recipe is definitely a keeper and it was very easy to make.
The flavor was great, but texture for me was dense and dry. The only sub I made was I used 1/4 C less oil (replaced it with more applesauce), and used zest of 2 oranges. I tested cake at 52 minutes and it was done, maybe already a tad overdone so probably should have checked at 54 minutes. Perhaps next time I will use all the oil and add 1-2 TBS sour cream.. If I’d got the texture right, it would have been amazing!
Oops I meant checked at 45 minutes! My oven seems t o cook things faster than recipes call for.
Could this be made with pineapple juice?
Yes!
Can you frost this cake instead of sprinkling with powdered sugar?
You could – I would think a glaze would work better than frosting for a bundt cake like this though! But either one would taste great.