Orange Cake: a sweet with a past
I found the recipe for this cake in a 1954 “Better Homes and Gardens”. I made it for Tina’s Halloween party and it was very appreciated. I could have eaten the frosting all by itself.
Orange Cake
preheat oven to 350°F 175° C
grease and flour two layer/sandwich cake pans of 8″ diam
263 g /1.25 cups sugar
190 g/2 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
75 g/1/3 cup butter
237 ml /1 cup orange juice and milk mixed (not less than 1/3 juice)
1 large egg
finely grated rind of one orange
In a bowl beat the sugar and butter together until fluffy. Add the egg and
beat in well. Add the dry and the wet ingredients alternately, a bit at a
time, until they are incorporated. Beat 2 minutes.
Scrape the batter into the two pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes, until a
toothpick emerges clean. Allow to rest a few minutes, then remove to
cooling racks and allow to cool completely.
Icing
using a liquid measure, spoon SIFTED icing sugar to measure 24 ounces. Americans can just lift the sifted sugar into a 1 cup measure to make 3 cups. In abowl beat with 75 g/1/3 cup of butter until fluffy. Add 60 ml/1/4 cup orange juice and 1-1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange rind and beat until very fluffy. Frost the cold cake layers.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I am off to celebrate with friends.
That must be the same recipe my mom used to make! It was a tradition for both my dad and my brother to have an orange cake on their birthdays. And you’re right – it’s wonderful!
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Winter birthdays have to be good for something, right? Mine is full summer and there are no oranges then, but I would accept this cake. Even if it is not blue.
I’m going to wait for my husband to bring our untreated oranges from Positano, then I will definetely try this. Your Apple muffins were delicious!
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This cake looks good. I love “old” recipes (well, it’s not that old, my age actually!) and will try it later this winter with oranges from our trees. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!
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I don’t think you will be disappointed, but be aware that this cake is not as tall as a recipe with 3-4 eggs nor a cake mix cake. Still, it is definitely worth making and I will make it again during orange season. Can’t wait to try blood oranges!
Here’s hoping you had a good one. :)
Back here looking after my Ma in East Yorkshire, I’m surrounded by her cookery book collection, much of which has followed her around since the 1950s. Lots of dessert recipes that look like this – acres of amazing-looking frosting in particular. We’ve lost the art to frost with wild abandon. It’s all got to look like something nowadays.
No, the older cookery books have it right.
(Although, my mum’s cookery books all seem to contain recipes that involve embedding prawns in aspic jelly, so you can see them staring out at you from their little transparent wobbling tombs. Very disturbing. On this topic, I am staunchly modern. Kthx).
Dear Mike, with the exception of tomato aspic, which is not transparent and not very wiggly, I remain firmly on the side of unjelled food as well. Other exceptions include glazes for tarts… how do you feel about those French tarts?