Orange Pound Cake

Today we are making this deliciously moist orange pound cake! We topped with an orange flavored glaze and bright, colorful orange zest.

I love pairing food into a cake. Oranges especially add a delicate fresh taste and provided additional moistness to the cake.

This pound cake is rich and dense, but most importantly moist and delicious.

It's very similar to lemon pound cake, but slightly sweeter. And we have completely loaded it with orange in every way we could think of, and it was worth it!

It's a perfect cake to make in the fall when oranges are abundant and at their sweetest.

Make sure to check out our deliciously moist orange creamsicle cupcakes while you're in the orangey mood.

Ingredients

For the Pound Cake

All Purpose Flour: The base of your pound cake.

Baking Powder: Acts as a leveling agent to help the cake rise.

Baking Soda: An additional leveling agent to help the cake rise.

Salt: A tiny bit of salt in a dessert recipe helps bring out all the flavors.

Unsalted Butter: Using unsalted butter gives you more control of just how much salt is in your cake recipe. The butter should be a room temperature and soft to the touch.

Granulated Sugar: Sugar brings the sweetness to the cake and helps with the structure of the cake.

Orange Zest: Helps bring a beautiful citrus flavor to the cake. To make orange zest, simply use a small pairing knife and slice off small slivers of a fresh orange.

Eggs: Eggs help bind the cake batter and create structure.

Orange Extract: Brings the main orange flavor to the pound cake.

Vanilla Extract: Combines deliciously with the orange flavors in the cake.

Buttermilk: Helps bring a tangy flavor to your cake, while the acid in the buttermilk softens the gluten in the batter and makes your cake extra moist.

Sour Cream: Adds moisture to the batter.

Orange Juice: Fresh orange juice adds the best flavor. Again, this is an orange pound cake. The orange juice helps build on the other orange flavors for an extra orangey, citrus flavor.

For the Orange Glaze

Powdered Sugar: This is the base of your orange glaze. Powdered sugar or confectioners sugar works better than granulated sugar in glazes because the sugar dissolves smoother and better. If you don't have powdered sugar, you could put granulated sugar in a blender and blend until the sugar is super fine.

Orange Juice: In most glazes you'll use milk. But for this glaze we want to bring out more orange flavor. Substituting orange juice makes for a delicious glaze with tons of citrus flavors.

Orange extract: Again. More orange flavor. Trust me, it makes a big difference!

Substitutions

For the orange juice, juice made from freshly squeezed orange juice adds the best flavor. Store bought juice will work, but it tends to alter the flavor a bit.

If you don't have orange extract but have orange syrup on hand, you can use that instead. Just cut out a small amount of the granulated sugar.

We added the sour cream in for extra moisture. I am a big fan of sour cream in cakes, because of all the moist goodness.

If you don't have sour cream, plain yogurt works well too. If you can't use either of those just substitute it with an additional ½ cup of buttermilk.

If you don't have buttermilk you can make a buttermilk alternative by mixing an acid like vinegar or lemon juice into regular milk. Just add 1 tablespoon of the vinegar or lemon juice into each cup of milk you'll be using.

Top Tips

It's helpful to sift the flour with the baking powder and baking soda to avoid any clumps later in the cake.

The orange extract isn't a must for the cake to turn out delicious, but it is recommended if you have it or can easily get your hands on it.

Adding an extra layer of the orange flavor that is out of this world.

Instructions

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your pan with non-stick spray.

For this recipe, we used an angel food tube pan.

In a medium sized mixing bow, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.

In a separate larger bowl, cream the butter and sugar together by beating with an electric mixer for 3 or 4 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Then add in your orange extract (if using) and the eggs, mixing well in between each egg.

Then add in the sour cream, orange zest and orange juice.

Mix everything until just combined.

Finally, start slowly adding in the flour mixture to the wet mixture, alternating with the buttermilk.

This helps keep the cake batter not too moist and not too dry to work with.

Keep alternating until you've used up all the flour mixture and buttermilk.

Once everything is mixed, pour your batter into your prepared pan and smooth the batter out with a spatula.

Bake for 1 hour, to 1 hour and 10 minutes and a toothpick comes out clean.

Remove your cake from the oven and let the pound cake cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan and moving to a cooling rack.

Once your cake has cooled, you can start making the orange glaze!

In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar, orange extract and 2 tablespoon of orange juice, and mix well.

If your glaze is too thick, you can keep adding a small amount of orange juice until it's a consistency you like.

Pour you glaze over your cooled cake and top with a bit of orange zest. Garnish with a few orange slices and serve!