This will be the best orange drizzle cake recipe you will ever used and tasted!

Orange Drizzle Cake by Bakeomaniac

It is simply juicy and moist, with a nice crunchy sugar topping on top. This combination of softness and crunchiness made by day. Alongside, this orange drizzle cake has a pleasant citrus perfume that permeates the air around it, both as it bakes and even when I delivered it to my friend in its bag. It’s absolutely delicious.

This is achieved by pouring the orange juice after it is made, instead of into the batter, hence it’s name orange drizzle cake! It is not very orange ( in colour ), but you can add food colouring if you wish too, although I did not for mine.

I shouldn’t be finding it amusing, but I kind of am again realizing that orange refers to both the colour and the fruit!

This cake’s flavour is also derived from all 100% orange. We will be utilizing both the zest and the juice of the orange. My friend was extremely surprised tasting this cake, because it was absolutely different from all the other orange cakes he had tasted.

This orange cake do not use orange essence or flavouring, and tastes absolutely authentic, 100% natural and pure orange. A bonus will also be that there is no colouring! 

I know, I know. You probably had the same problem or thought as me. If I were to post it online or send the picture of this orange cake to someone else, how do you prove that it is actually ORANGE? Well, it has orange zest spread throughout it. Honestly, my camera was unable to capture the orange zest within the cake, but perhaps with a good high quality camera, you can do it. If you look back to the image carefully however, you can see some zest popping up shyly! You can also consider decorating your cake with some slices of orange, just a suggestion!

This recipe will also be extremely simple to make, and even if you’re a beginner, you can definitely make it! It just involves simple creaming and mixing!

Most importantly, why go to a cafe for the very same orange drizzle cake for a high end price, when you can make it simply yourself, have eight times the portion ( of a slice ), for probably the same price or even below that price?

Let’s talk no more and get to the kitchen to make this unique orange drizzle cake! Today shall be the day of the citrus!

Overall Difficulty: 1/5
Time Taken: 1 hour 15 minutes ( Rounded up ). Inclusive of zesting, juicing, mixing the batter and cooking the cake. Not inclusive of cooling time needed.

Ingredients Needed:

  • 1 cup of plain flour
  • 1/2 cup of caster sugar
  • 1/4 cup of granulated sugar
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon of salt
  • grated zest of a whole orange ( mine measured 1 tablespoon, completely compressed )
  • 1/2 cup of butter, softened at room temperature
  • 2 large eggs at room temperature ( 55g each including the shell )
  • 1/4 cup of whole milk, at room temperature
  • 1/3 cup of orange juice, juiced from the fruit itself and not from the carton!

Method:

  1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C or 350F. Place a piece of parchment paper in a 9″ springform pan.
  2. Beat your butter until it is soft, and lighter in colour. Add in the 1/2 cup of caster sugar and cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  3. Add the eggs one by one, mixing each time such that the egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. I notice this by seeing if there are still any dark yellow streaks of egg yolk amongst the batter.
  4. Add in the milk to the mixture and mix.
  5. Add in the flour, baking powder, zest and salt and stir well until they’re incorporated. Do not overmix the flour or the gluten will be over activated and the cake will become tough instead of light and airy.
  6. Add the cake batter into the prepared 9″ springform pan and bake between 28 and 33 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  7. While you’re waiting for the cake to be baked, mix the orange juice and the remaining portion of granulated sugar until the sugar dissolves.
  8. Once the cake is out of the oven, place it on a wire rack.
  9. Use a skewer and poke the cake at random intervals to create holes for the orange juice to seep in. Pour the orange sugar mixture over the top of the cake evenly and allow the cake to cool.
  10. As the sugar wasn’t well distributed, I used a spoon to evenly distribute the sugar.
  11. Serve and enjoy! They can be kept up to 4 days in an airtight container. I feel that the flavour gets better and stronger as the days progress.

Notes:

You can totally omit the granulated sugar if you don’t like the extra crunch. It’s pretty much up to personal preference. For me, I am perfectly fine with both. However, recently I prefer the one without the sugar on top because I want to enjoy the full flavour of this amazing citrus fruit without being it being overpowered by the sugar.

Do also note that you should zest the orange before halving and then juicing it!

The orange I am using measures 7cm ( long side ) if you’re curious, by the way! One large sized orange should generally be sufficient!

Enjoy and do share this post if you have tried or like it,
–  Bakeomaniac, Javier Tan!