A light fluffy and melting moist orange cake. A traditional grandma recipe of the original Tunisian orange cake.
Orange cake is a very old and traditional cake that exist in many countries all over the world but some theories says that it is originally a north African recipe and more precisely a Tunisian one , i am not sure about the origins of the recipe neither these infos but if there is one thing that i am sure of : it is my favorite childhood cake along with chocolate cakes and it is an ancestral recipe in my family .
Back in the days Vanilla was not a common ingredients in the Tunisian cuisine so the most common flavor ingredients in sweets and cakes was either ornage zest , lemon zest , orange blossom water , germanium water or rose water. All of those are the common flavors in the North African desserts as well .
3 Ingredients that garantee a perfeclty moist Orange cake :
- Oil: Fat is the key element of the cake moisture and the crumb texture in any cake and tha's why i choosed to use the oil exactly like in my mothers recipe. The oil gives an airy cake crumb with bigger ans more spaced air bubbles and imprisones more moisture in the cake .
- Yogurt: I used in this recipe greek yogurt but any natural yogurt will do . Yogurt adds is more fat to the cake butter in addition to the sourness that will help rising the cake along with the baking powder .
- Orange juice: It doesn't only add a great flavor to emphasise the orange sweetness but it also adds its share of moist to the cake and give it that orange-ish color .
- Bonus Tip : Orange sirup This is an optional step but in most of the traditional recipes that i know the cake is soaked with an orange juice sirup when out of the oven so the sirup goes in the cake and make it even more melting , flavorfull and moist . Now some may not agree on adding the sirup because the cake might become too sweet but i can assure you it doesn't . The freshly pressed orange juice acidity cuts through the sweetness of the sugar and balance the sirup final taste . But as i already mentioned this sirup is optional you can skip it and still have an incredicly moist orange cake .
I like brushing the cake with the orange sirup to get that shiny moist look but without soaking it all the way through !
Moist Orange Cake
INGREDIENTS
- 4 eggs
- 120 gr oil ( any neutral vegetal oil)
- 100 gr orange juice
- Zest of one orange
- 250 gr flour
- 150 gr sugar
- 10 gr baking powder
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract or orange blossom water
- 100 gr greek yogurt
- Optional : 100 gr sugar + 65 gr pressen orange juice
INSTRUCTIONS
- Mix the eggs and sugar until its well incorporated and the mixture turns white-ish.
- Next, add the oil , orange blossom water ( or the vanilla extract) and yogurt. Keep whisking for minute.
- Sift the flour and baking powder in a seperate bowl then add it gradually to the egg mixture.
- Add the orange zest and juice and mix it in very well.
- Bake the cake for 30 min in a 180 preheated oven in a 30 cm diameter bundt cake pan.
- Optional :
orange juice sirop : on a medium heat place the sugar and pressed orange juice and cook until having a lightly sticky sirop that you can apply on the cake with a bruch to enhance it's moisure even further .
Amal Nasri
A full time sweet tooth foodie , foodphotographer and recipe developer who is always on the hunt of new flavor combinations and food discoveries to re-create sweet delicacies and fresh dessert recipes .