Oranges, they have the most amazingly beautiful perfume don’t they? I love how zesting them fills the air with their heady scent. It’s a smell that makes me think of sunshine and clear blue days, no matter the time of the year, especially on the cold winter days we are experiencing here in Brisbane.
While this Orange and Cranberry cake is not a fancy showstopper style cake by any means, it is nevertheless, a beautiful cake. It’s packed full of oranges, both their beautifully perfumed zest and sweet juice and the cakes delicate texture is soft and velvety and almost melts in your mouth.
It’s an amazingly simple cake to make, as it’s made in a food processor. Everything for this Orange and Cranberry cake combines into a pale yellow fluffy fragrant batter, which when baked, fills your house with it’s amazing aroma.
Do you love the aromas that waft out of your kitchen when baking? What is your favourite? Fresh bread, vanilla cookies, lemon cake?
- CAKE:
- 3 cups (450g) of all purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- ½ teaspoon of baking soda
- 3 large eggs
- 2 cups (440g) of caster sugar
- 250g of unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into cubes
- 1 cup (250ml) of buttermilk
- finely grated zest of 3 large oranges
- ½ cup (125ml) of freshly squeezed orange juice
- 80g of dried cranberries
- GLAZE:
- 1 cup (160g) icing sugar, sifted
- ¼ cup (60ml) of freshly squeezed orange juice
- 2 teaspoons of orange zest
- 30g of unsalted butter, melted
- Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius/ 300 Fahrenheit and grease and flour a 26cm bundt pan.
- Place the eggs,sugar and orange zest into a food processor fitted with a large bowl and process until thick and creamy.
- Add the buttermilk and orange juice and process for 10 seconds to combine.
- Reserve 1 tablespoon of the flour, and sift in the remaining flour, baking soda and salt. Pulse until to combine, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Mix the cranberries with the reserved flour and then using a rubber spatula mix into the cake batter.
- Bake for 70 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cake rack.
- For the glaze, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until combined.
- Using a cake tester or skewer pierce the cake with little holes all over to allow the glaze to seep into the cake.
- Brush the glaze over the cake until all the glaze is used. Leave the cake to cool completely before serving.
I love the smell of fresh bread, but even more than that...the smell of baking pears! Yum!
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I love the smell of cinnamon, and of course garlic sizzling away in a pan, or my favourite - chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven :)
Can't wait to smell this cake baking in my oven very soon!
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I love oranges in my bake...and this must have been a wonderful cake!
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Is it very sweet? That seems like an awful lot of sugar!
Hi Elizabeth :D It is a sweet cake but not overly so, in my opinion. I hope that helps.
I know what you mean about the smell of oranges. The zest is one of my favourite things to use in cooking! :)
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Hooray for easy cakes that you make in the food processor! And I can imagine how wonderful the oranges would make this smell while baking, mmmmm.......
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It doesn't look simple, its looks complex in terms of flavor, and gorgeous. And I bet really delicious too.
Looks so pretty, i have not really used cranberries much, i should buy them for some baking.
I haven't eaten ONE orange this winter- I realised the other day!! I'm going to have to get onto that before the season comes and goes!