Vegan Orange Cake with Orange Marmalade Buttercream

Name: Vegan Orange Cake with Orange Marmalade Buttercream Frosting
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 20 slices
Ingredients: 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour ((can use whole wheat pastry flour or half all purpose and half whole wheat)); 2 tsp baking soda; 1/2 tsp salt; 2 cups orange juice ((sub two tbsp of the orange juice with an orange liqueur if you like)); 2 cups sugar; 2/3 cup vegetable oil; 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar; 2 tsp pure vanilla extract; 1 cup vegan butter ((2 sticks)); 1/2 cup orange marmalade; 2 cups powdered sugar; 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

By Vaishali | Updated on July 15, 2019 | Posted on June 20, 2019 | 61 Comments

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This decadent Vegan Orange Cake with Orange Marmalade Buttercream Frosting is bright and delicious and you can even make it wholegrain! One-bowl, 10-ingredient recipe.

Citrus is a marvelous flavor for cakes, and one I never can get enough of. This vegan Orange Cake is a dessert I’ve baked over and over for many years, after first finding the recipe in the Joy of Cooking. Over the years I’ve made some tweaks and, most importantly, I’ve multiplied its deliciousness by doubling the recipe and slathering it with a fluffy, decadent orange marmalade buttercream frosting.

This is a delicious cake, full of orange flavor in every bite. It has a tender crumb that’s perfectly but not cloyingly sweet, and the marmalade buttercream is soft and fluffy and to die for.

It is also a rather easy cake to make: it should take you no more than 10 minutes to throw the ingredients together and perhaps another 10 to whip up the frosting, if that. It’s also a one-bowl recipe because you can throw all your ingredients for the cake in one by one, and then rinse out the bowl and use it to whip up your frosting. And best of all, you can even make your cake a tad boozy, as I sometimes do (but not this time), by subbing a couple of tablespoons of the orange juice with an orange liqueur.

10 ingredients for Vegan Orange Cake with Orange Marmalade Buttercream Frosting:

Flour. I sometimes use unbleached all purpose but when I’m feeling a little extra-healthy, I’ve used whole wheat pastry flour. Both give great results that are quite comparable. You can also use half and half if you’re undecided.
Orange. You need both the juice and the zest here. I use the pulpy juice, so if you want to just toss your oranges in a blender and juice them up (sans the skin, of course), go ahead. Or just buy the juice off the shelf at your grocer’s. You will need a whole orange to zest, though.
Orange marmalade. This is for the frosting, and it’s wonderful.
Vegetable oil. In vegan cakes, oil not only subs for butter, I think it makes the cake more moist, which is a win-win, isn’t it?
Baking soda
Apple cider vinegar (use regular vinegar if that’s what you have)
Pure vanilla extract
Sugar. I use turbinado, which makes the crumb darker, but any kind will work.
Powdered sugar or confectioner’s sugar, for the frosting.
Vegan butter for the frosting.

How to make a Vegan Orange Cake:

This is a one-bowl recipe, like I already said, so you don’t have to worry about mixing the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients, then merging them. You can start out by throwing in your wet ingredients — the orange juice, oil, vinegar, vanilla and sugar — beat it all until combined, and then throw in the dry ingredients and mix until they come together.
Scrape your batter into two 8- or 9-inch cake pans lined at the bottom with parchment paper and with the sides oiled. Bake for 30-35 minutes in a preheated 350-degree oven until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.
Cool the cakes in the pan, then unmold and continue cooling them on racks before frosting.

How to make the Vegan Orange Marmalade Buttercream Frosting:

Make sure your butter is at room temperature — not hard nor melted, but soft.
Start out by combining the orange marmalade in the bowl with the butter and whisk, then begin to add the powdered sugar, half a cup at a time.
Beat in the sugar after each addition and taste as you go to adjust the amount of sugar up or down to your liking. I find that most frosting recipes use too much sugar for my taste. For this cake I used two cups of powdered sugar and it was perfect. More sugar will make your buttercream stiffer, so keep that in mind as well.
If your powdered sugar has been standing around for some time and is clumping together, run it through a sieve before adding it to the frosting to make sure the buttercream is perfectly smooth and fluffy, the way you want it to be.
Use an offset spatula or a butter knife to frost your cake. Dump half of the frosting on the first cake, spread it around evenly, then carefully place the second cake, bottom side up on the first cake and frost the top and sides with remaining frosting. This recipe doesn’t make enough frosting to get a liberal layer of buttercream around the sides of the cake, but if you want to do that, add another stick of butter to your frosting and increase the other ingredients proportionately.

I hope you’ll try and enjoy this amazing Vegan Orange Cake with Orange Marmalade Buttercream Frosting as much as we did. If you make it, be sure to let me know in the comments below or take a photo and tag me @holycowvegan on Instagram!

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More vegan cakes from the blog:

Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake with a Lemon Glaze

Vegan Lemon Yogurt Bundt Cake

Vegan Zucchini Cake with Orange Marmalade Glaze

Vegan Mango Cheesecake

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