A from scratch egg free cake that will wow your guests! This Blood Orange Cake has greek yogurt and freshly squeezed orange juice. Top with vanilla frosting and fresh citrus fruit, then garnish with fresh rosemary and sage.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword fruit cake, layered cake, orange cake, winter citrus
Prep Time 1 hourhour
Cook Time 26 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour26 minutesminutes
Servings 12
Calories 466kcal
Ingredients
For the cake:
2 1/4cupscake flour(plus a little more for greasing and flouring the baking pans)
Mix of different citrus fruits including Blood oranges, juicing oranges, mandarins…
Fresh sage
fresh rosemary sprigs
Instructions
Prep work:
Start by washing all of the citrus fruits really well, then dry them.
Juice the oranges to get the 1 cup of juice needed, remove any seeds, but some pulp is definitely okay.
Make the cake:
Combine all of the dry ingredients together in a medium size bowl and whisk.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a separate bowl. Add the orange juice, Greek yogurt and orange zest. Mix well.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and use an electric mixer to combine. You should have a thick, fluffy and rich batter.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 6" round cake pans with shortening, then dust with flour.
Evenly divide the batter between the 2 prepared pans.
Bake for about 26 to 30 minutes (even though the pans are small, these are thick layers and you’ll need to ensure the cakes are baked all the way through). Check with a toothpick and remove when it comes out clean.
Let the cakes cool for 5 minutes in the pans and then carefully transfer to a wire cooling rack until they are completely cool.
If time allows, wrap the cakes tightly with plastic wrap and chill for at least 3 hours before planning to frost them. This helps them to firm up and they'll be easier to frost.
For the frosting:
In a stand mixer bowl, with the mixer on medium speed, whip the butter for 2 minutes until it is almost white in color.
Add in the powdered sugar, vanilla and 3 tablespoons milk. Beat on low speed for 3-5 minutes, adding in the last tablespoon of milk if the buttercream needs to be thinner to spread easily. Cover the buttercream with plastic wrap until you are ready to frost the cake.
Assemble the cake:
When you are ready to frost and the cakes are cool, check that the cake layers are even. If needed ,use a sturdy serrated knife or cake splitter to even out and remove the tops.
Put a small amount of frosting on the bottom center of the plate to help hold the cakes in place.
Cover the bottom cake with a thick and even layer of frosting.
Set the second cake layer on top. Check to make sure the cake is level on top.
Frost the top and sides of the cake in whatever style best fits you. You can make the frosting as smooth as possible or leave it a little rough and rustic.
For the marshmallow blobs, Carefully heat about 5 jumbo marshmallows in the microwave. Stir them often to prevent burning and heat just until melted. A tiny bit of Wilton’s golden yellow food coloring gel to create a pale orange color. This mixture will be extremely sticky. You can use disposable gloves that were covered with a little bit of oil to help prevent sticking to the gloves and your hands while working with it.
Dollop the marshmallow blobs to the top of the cake.
Then build the rest of the embellishments off of that, piling orange peel, slices and small mandarin oranges on top.
Give the sage leaves a little bit of natural body and movement by making them loop up a little bit here and there. The leaves very easily stick to the fresh frosting which holds them perfectly in place.
Wrap the rosemary around the base of the cake.
Carefully & loosely cover and chill until you’re ready to serve. Store in the refrigerator.
This lasted very nicely for 5 days (before disappearing) when kept air tight and chilled.