Orange Cake

It has been three weeks after my last post. Oh my, after having such a busy week, finally I have a chance to update my blog. I want to share one of my favorite cake. Orange cake.

I've made this cake few times already including for my daughter's birthday cake. Actually, I got the recipe from here. Moroccan Orange Cake.  It's an easy recipe indeed. But in my opinion, it didn't have enough strong orange flavor. First, I wanted to increase the amount of orange juice. But if i do that, that's mean that I increase the volume of the liquid of my batter. My batter will be thinner than it's supposed to be and I worried that it will ruin my cake. That's why, I tried to concentrate the orange juice by boiling it before. For the first time, I was kind of afraid that the juice will taste bad and bitter after boiling process. But it was not. I added some sugar into the juice just to increase the sweetness of the orange juice itself.

This orange cake is really good with orange cream frosting or sugar glazing or even chocolate ganache.

Ingredients :

• 2 eggs
• 75 grams (3/4 cup) white granulated sugar
• 63 ml (1/4 cup) vegetable oil
• 128 grams (1 cup) AP flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 100 ml orange juice + 3 tbs white sugar
• orange zest from 1-2 orange
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• few drop orange coloring agent (optional)

Preparation :

1. In a small pot, boil mixture of orange juice and 3 tbs sugar.
2. Once it's boiled, reduce the heat and simmer it until you get about 65 ml juice left. Stir once more, set it aside and let it cool completely.
3. Preheat the oven to 180 C (356 F)
4. Prepare a baking pan and line it with baking paper (I was using 21x8 cm loaf pan. But you can always use 20 cm round pan). Set it aside.
5. In a big bowl, beat together eggs and sugar on high speed until it become thick and pale.
6. Reduce the speed and add vegetable oil gradually.
7. In another smaller bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
8. Stir in the flour mixture into the egg mixture.
9. Add orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla extract and stir the batter again until smooth. 
10. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and level the surface.
11. Put the baking pan into the oven and bake it for about 35-40 minutes.
12. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely.