Orange Cake (Bolo de Laranja)

July 12, 2022

This delicious Orange Cake recipe made in a bundt or tube pan is a traditional, classic Portuguese cake known as Bolo de Laranja.

I hosted a Portuguese dinner party several years ago, and I used David Leite’s The New Portuguese Table cookbook for most of my recipes. This Orange Cake was one of them. The whole dinner was fabulous, but this Orange Cake (Bolo de Laranja) was the star. Everyone loved it and asked for more.

Ingredients needed:

oranges
all purpose flour
baking powder
kosher salt
eggs
white sugar
extra virgin olive oil
powdered sugar

How to make

The complete, printable recipe is at the end of this post.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven, remove any racks above, and crank up the heat to 350°F. Coat a 12-cup bundt or tube pan with baking spray and set aside.

Finely grate the zest of 3 of the oranges, then squeeze 4 of them. You should have 1½ cups of juice; if not, squeeze the 5th orange, then set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a handheld mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs on medium-high speed until well-combined, about 1 minute. Slowly pour in the granulated sugar and continue beating until thick and pale yellow, about 3 minutes. On low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and oil, starting and ending with the flour, and beat until just a few wisps of flour remain. Pour in the orange juice and zest and whirl for a few seconds to bring the batter together. Pour the batter into the prepared pan

Bake until a cake tester comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it, about 1¼ hours. If the top is browning too much as the cake bakes, cover lightly with foil. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for 15 minutes.

Turn the cake out onto the rack and cool completely, then place it in a covered cake stand and let it sit overnight. Just before serving, dust cake with powdered sugar.

You can see from the photos that this cake has a tender crumb. It’s a little more dense than a layer cake- more like a bundt cake/pound cake consistency. The orange flavor comes through nicely. It’s so good!

The oil used in this recipe is olive oil, which isn’t typical for a cake recipe. Many have asked if the olive oil lends a weird flavor to the cake. The answer is “no.” Use a lighter flavored olive oil when you make this cake. If you use an olive oil with big, bold, earthy flavors then you might pick up those “weird” flavors.

My Mom’s side of the family is Portuguese, but we had never tried this Orange Cake (Bolo de Laranja). Now it’s one of my favorites to make and serve as a dessert for company. I hope you’ll try it too. Enjoy!

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