At the time I’m writing this post, we have been home for Social Distancing for 10 days. Yesterday my kids and I baked an Orange Cake with Walnuts. Not only the cake came out delicious, but we spent some great family time and the kids were so happy to help me make the cake.
Usually I bake or cook a dish at least 3 times before posting the recipe because I want to make sure I have the instructions right. But this time, I’m sharing it right away. Hope it helps another family!
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Family Cake Recipe
If you’re just happening upon my blog on this recipe, I wanted to let you know that I was born in a small Mediterranean country called Albania. We used oranges a lot in winter time, not only as fruit but in salads (see orange salad with cabbage or orange salad with quinoa or orange salad with arugula) or baking (see orange cookies).
The most special one is a orange cake with walnuts which in my home country we call Kek me Portokalle dhe Arra. Kek means cake, portokalle means oranges and arra means walnuts:).
Recipe Notes, Ingredients and Tips
See below a picture of all the ingredients we used to make the cake and their quantities.
You’ll need 2 navel oranges for this cake. First orange – squeeze to make fresh orange juice. Second orange – zest the skin first. Then peel the remaining white part of the skin. Finally chop the orange into small bite size pieces.
You’ll have to use the zest and juice in the dough of the cake. However, the small bite pieces of oranges are optional. We like adding them to the cake, but I know some people don’t like that texture mix. So maybe try it in small quantities first to see if you like it or not.
Optional – back home we used to add 2 oz of cognac to the dough mix. It gives a great taste to the cake and you can’t feel the alcohol after it is baked. However, I didn’t have any on hand so we didn’t add it this time.
Flour – I only had all purpose flour on hand so I added baking powder. You can use self-rising powder too.
Once you bake it, let the cake cool. Then remove carefully from the bundt shape. Cake will look like this before you add confectioner’s sugar.
Orange Cake with Walnuts
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 2 navel oranges
- 2.5 cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 1 stick butter (about 8 tbsps or 113 grams)
- 3/4 cups chopped walnuts
Instructions
- Zest 1 orange, cut the rest of the orange in small bite size pieces.
- Squeeze the 2nd orange, set the juice aside.
- Make sure butter is room temperature and softened.
- I use a hand held mixer for this recipe, if you have a stand mixer please adjust accordingly.
- Mix flour, baking powder and salt together. Set that bowl aside.
- Also pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about 180 degrees Celsius)
- Start mixing eggs and sugar together. Slowly add butter in once the eggs/sugar mix is getting whiter.
- Add vanilla extract and then slowly add flour mix in. Keep mixing while you add each ingredient.
- Add orange juice and orange zest and continue mixing. Once you have a homogenous cake dough, stop the hand held mixer.
- Add walnuts and orange pieces, use a spoon to give it a final mix.
- Spray the bundt cake pan with non-stick cooking spray. Pour dough in and then set to bake for about 45 minutes.
- Let cool for 30 minutes before you attempt to remove the cake from the cake pan. Use a knife to separate the side then flip the pan over on a big plate.
- Optional – sprinkle some confectioner's sugar on top of the cake to decorate before cutting it.
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please pin the below image to Pinterest. Let me know if you have any questions or show me if you made the cake:). Thank you!!
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I swear I can smell this cake through my computer screen! Oranges make any baked good taste especially delicious, but also a bit comforting for some reason. The perfect recipe for Quarantine Baking!
Hi Colleen, sorry just got your comment, it had ended up in spam somehow!! Thank you so much for your comment and yes it is the perfect quarantine baking. My kids kept mixing and mixing, I thought the cake would never rice lol. But it still came out ok. So I was very happy to share a family friendly recipe that allows for lots of flexibility and still come out ok.