Orange Loaf Cake {With Fresh Oranges}

This easy orange loaf cake is made with fresh oranges and uses buttermilk and sour cream for an extra moist, luxurious loaf cake! Have this for an after school snack or a keep-you-going mid morning with a cup of tea kinda thing, whenever you eat it, you're going to love it!

Orange Loaf Cake

Do you ever find yourself with a heap of oranges you've bought and no clue what to do with them except using them for juice? Me too.

They're so appealing in the supermarket all bright and healthy looking. And so I buy them and then never find a second to juice them or a child complains about the bits and before I know it, it's do something with them or throw them.

And I'm definitely not about to throw them. So, this week, I made this Orange loaf cake.

And yes, once you cut one orange it's messy and so I juiced the rest. They are so good!

Anyway back to the loaf cake.

Now, you could make this as a classic muffin cake type recipe, but I wanted to make it firstly more orangey, and secondly I wanted a creamy sorta thing. Maybe a bit sticky, a bit sweet, full of flavor and just...yummy. And I can tell you, this does the job on all fronts.

I've used buttermilk and sour cream and less butter than I normally would. This helps to keep the orange loaf moist while giving it a lovely fresh creaminess. It's a pretty classic recipe and I've added some adaptations and ingredients you can add in if you fancy them.

Fresh Oranges Or Extract?

While you can use orange extract I much prefer using fresh oranges, both the juice and the zest for extra orangey flavor. While it's not loads, it's better to get some of the goodness from the fresh fruit than none at all I guess :)

Adaptations

The basic recipe for this cake is classic and plain, and obviously I've added orange into this to make it an orange loaf cake. However...if you fancy jazzing it up there's lots of things you can add into it if you wanted to, such as:

• Dried cranberries - Add a handful of dried cranberries (often in the baking department of the supermarkets) and they'll become juicy and sweet when the soak up some of the moisture from the loaf cake
• Raisins - As with the cranberries above but you could use raisins or sultanas
• Dates - Being the date lovers we are, dates would be awesome in this loaf. Chop half a cup of dates into small pieces and add them to the batter right before you bake the loaf
• Cocoa - Oranges and chocolate together are Oh so yummy, so try adding 2 table spoons of cocoa to the batter right when you add the flour and baking powder

Storing An Orange Loaf Cake

As with all my loaf cakes you can keep this loaf cake tightly wrapped so it's airtight for up to 3 days. This recipes is especially moist and so you can usually get an extra day or two out of it if you make sure there's no air that can get to it.

Because of the sour cream and butter cream I keep this cake in the fridge wrapped in parchment paper. You can bring the loaf back up to room temperature by taking it out of the fridge an hour or two before you want to eat it.

You can also pop a slice of this into the kids lunchboxes for morning breaks and by the time they take it out to eat it it'll have reached room temperature.

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More Clean Eating Loaf Cakes

• Healthy lemon and blueberry loaf
• Lemon curd loaf
• Honey bread
• Banana and date loaf
• Classic banana bread
• Healthier vanilla cake

How To Make Orange Loaf Cake

Ingredients

• 1½ Cups Flour I used white spelt flour
• ½ Cup Butter Unsalted, melted
• 2 Eggs Whisked
• 1 Cup Coconut sugar
• ¼ Cup Fresh orange juice
• ¼ Cup Buttermilk
• ¼ Cup Sour cream
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 1 tsp Orange zest Fresh orange, or orange extract

Instructions

• Heat your oven to 190° and line or grease a regular sized loaf tin with parchment paper
• In a large mixing bowl add the butter and sugar and use electric beaters to beat the mix until it's light and fluffy, usually a few minutes of mixing!
• Add the whisked eggs and beat for another 30 seconds
• Then add the sour cream, buttermilk, orange juice and zest and gently combine, going really slowly to start: it can take a while for the mixture to combine well. I use a wooden spoon to bring it all together
• Add the flour and baking powder to the batter and gently combine, making sure not to 'over mix'
• Pour the loaf cake batter into the lined loaf tin and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes. Take the cake out once the top looks golden and had risen well. Insert a sharp knife or skewer into the middle and if it comes out clean, it's cooked. If not, pop it back into the oven for another 5 minutes
• Once the loaf cake is cooked allow it to cool down in the tin and then turn it out onto a wire cooling rack
• Allow the loaf to fully cool down before slicing it

Orange Loaf Cake Recipe