Orange Velvet Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. A moist and tender crumbed orange cake with a simple but delicious chocolate buttercream frosting.
Orange Velvet Cake
This cake happily reminds me of my grandmother Morgan. She always had a cake baked and ready to serve any time her throng of grandchildren would drop by for an unexpected visit.
Most likely it was a boxed cake mix that she had prepared but one of the most common combinations you would find in Nan’s pantry was an orange cake with chocolate frosting. It was always garnished by a sprinkle of coconut too. That may well have been where my love of the chocolate orange flavour combination came to life.
This cake pays homage to my those visits to Nan’s pantry as a kid. The cake is very moist and tender and gets it’s citrus flavour punch from the finely minced zest of oranges incorporated into the batter.
Orange Velvet Cake
My kids came home from school to find this one waiting to be devoured and they have already put quite a dent in it. I guess that’s their stamp of approval.
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Orange Velvet Cake
If you loved the texture and flavour of this cake you will want to take a look at the growing number of different flavours in our Velvet Cake Recipe Collection.
Velvet Cake Collage
I generally bake this cake in round 8 inch pans or 9 inch round Aluminum Cake Pans but the recipe can also be made as a sheet cake in a 9 x 13 baking pan
I’ve found that the 9 inch pans may bake up a little quicker so be sure to check it 5 minutes early. Depending on whether you use glass or not, the 9×13 size could take a few minutes longer. Just let the toothpick test be the final judge.
Orange Velvet Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. A moist and tender crumbed orange cake with a simple but delicious chocolate buttercream frosting.
- 1 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups sugar use a fine grain sugar if you have it but regular granulated sugar will work fine
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1/3 cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
- 2 tsp good quality vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- zest of two large oranges finely minced
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
- 4 cups icing sugar powdered sugar
- 4 tbsp cocoa
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup melted chocolate chips cooled almost to room temperature, not hot
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-4 tbsp milk
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Grease two 8 or 9 inch cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
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Sift together the all purpose flour, the cake flour, baking soda, baking powder salt and sugar. Set aside.
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In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the oil, shortening and vanilla well at high speed with whisk attachment until light and fluffy.
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Beat in the eggs one at a time.
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Fold in the orange zest.
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Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk. I always add dry ingredients in three divisions and liquid ingredients in 2 divisions. It is very important to begin and end the additions with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, pour into the two prepared 8 or 9 inch cake pans.
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Bake at 325 degrees F for about 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The 9 inch pans will bake faster because the cake will be shallower.
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Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.
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I’ve frosted this cake with chocolate buttercream frosting but plain vanilla buttercream is great on this cake too or add a little orange zest to it for some extra zing. Marshmallow frosting is a terrific choice for this cake too.
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Mix the butter, cocoa and icing sugar together until the butter is broken up well into small pieces and distributed throughout the sugar. It may still look powdery at this point.
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Add the melted chocolate chips, vanilla extract and a couple of tablespoons of the milk.
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Add only 2 tbsp milk at he beginning and add more only as needed to bring the frosting to a spreadable consistency. Beat together well until smooth, fluffy and creamy. If you add a little too much milk just add a few tbsp more of icing sugar to bring it back to the proper consistency.
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I am trying this one this week for my birthday but I have an extra thought. Could you switch up the orange zest for lime or key lime zest? Then with a nice lime buttercream we could have a lime margherita cake?
Sounds amazing to me!
Had a friend commission me for a cake birthday cake for her mother, so I decided to give this one a go since I thoroughly enjoyed the White Velvet. Goodness, this is one ridiculously delicious cake! The only changes I made was subbing 1/3 cup unsalted butter for the shortening (I like the best of both worlds), and instead of baking in a 9-inch pan, I used my 8-inch pan, mainly to get thicker layers that I could torte. I also filled the layers with a homemade orange curd and frosted with an orange-scented cream cheese icing. The cake was a big hit and I have another keeper. Thanks again!
I can’t wait to try these. My niece sent me your link – I’m the Red Velvet cake maker in our family. I’ve always used cake flour for all cakes, but notice you used but cake and all purpose. Will let you know how the Lemon Velvet turns out
Cant wait to try these.
Can’t wait to try the Lemon Velvet one.
i cant find the recipe of chocolate buttercream in your post..
Thanks for catching the error. A link was omitted in error but I have replaced it with the actual recipe now.
Hi!! How easy or hard would it be to make this into a 10″ cake?
As long as the pan is deep enough it should be easy. My Wilton 10 inch pan could do it easily.
Hi can i substitute the 1/3 vegetable shortening and 2/3 vegetable oil with 1 cup unsalted butter?
That will not give the same soft texture that this cake is known for.
Can I bake this in a 9×13 inch pan and make it a sheet cake?
I think it would be fine. Might need extra baking time. Rely on the toothpick test to be sure.
Hi, please how long does this cake last outside the refrigerator.
3 days maybe. 4 or 5 in the fridge.
Thank you, Barry, for this wonderfully decadent recipe. I made this for my daughter’s 22nd birthday. She asked for a cake with orange and chocolate. I searched and came up with this winner. I grated a little orange zest on the top for decoration. Dangerous during Lent, but great for a celebration.
Clarifications on the chocolate frosting recipe-
I just made the icing today to go with your yellow cake. I used unsalted, softened butter. I measured 1 cup of Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet choc chips and microwaved in a glass measuring cup for three 30-sec intervals. The resulting amount of chocolate was about 1/2. Tricky bc the directions weren’t clear. I think you could do 2 cups of chips to get 1 cup of melted, but with the 4 Tbsp of cocoa powder too, I felt 1 cups of chips was fine.
I ended up using between 3-4 Tbsp of milk.
Added a pinch of salt as well to balance out the sweet.
Very good icing!
Hello Barry, My husband has been asking me for years to make him an orange cake.Saw this recipe on your sight and finally whipped one up for him. It’s a fantastic recipe-moist,tender and well flavoured from the rind of two oranges.I iced mine with an orange buttercream and he gave it 15 out of 10!! Thanks for sharing all your great recipes.
That is great to hear! Always happy to be a hit at any celebration.!
Catherine, could you post your orange buttercream frosting recipe?
Catherine , could you send me your orange buttercream frosting recipe?
To make the orange buttercream for Barry’s delicious cake I creamed 1/2 cup salted butter,2 cups icing sugar,zest of 1 orange and I beat it all together with enough freshly squeezed juice from the zested orange to make a nice spreading consistency.
Thank you for responding!
I made your white velvet recipe and it was superb. Can you publish lemon recipe in metric please? Is it the same weights as the white velvet recipe?
I rarely leave a comment but your take on velvet cakes is a welcome addition to the reg red. My daughter is allergic to chocolate. I know doesn’t seem fair but that is life. I have a question about a yellow velvet cake recipe I had and lost in a move. It was by far the most rich decadent cake i had ever made. One of those that got better the longer it set. It was a buttermilk based cake but it has 2 cups of vegetable oil in cake and in the frosting. The frosting was cooked and you could put nuts or coconut or both. I only made this cake once a year because of all the oil. But it was the best cake I ever ate. If you or any one has a recipe similar to this i would sure love to get it and make it for my daughters birthday in July. If not I will surely make one of your velvet cakes. Thank you for making versions without chocolate.
That does sound like a lot of oil. I’ve never seen a recipe with that much.
Made the orange velvet cake for a birthday dinner – it was very good and tasted like a Terry’s chocolate orange. I would, however, half the frosting recipe, it was very rich and too much sweetness for my palate. The cake itself was perfection and I’d love to try again with a lighter frosting!
Can this be made in a 9×13 pan?
it will be likely be slightly higher but yes Usr the toothpick test for timing.
Iif short on time would a box cake work?
Wow Barry! This is an awesome tasty moist cake! Even before I sat down to try my piece of cake my husband took a forkful of his and remarked that it was a very light. I tasted mine and had to agree that THIS is now my favourite cake! I only had 1 orange and 1 Lemon for the zest on hand so that’s what I used. Marvellous!
Now I need to try more of your Velvet series.
Thank you so much for this recipe.
Do you have a Cherry Velvet cake?
Im in ZImbabwe, Just bumped into your site whilt looking for easy mix moist cakes without hustles of creaming. woooooow thanks, your orange velvet was awesome,day 1 tasted dry n flat, but better with each day by the 3rd day it had become more moist and tasted even better even my mum was so glad. cant wait to try the lemon & choc velvet range, highly recommended.