This fresh orange pound cake with sour cream bursts with vibrant citrus flavor from the juice, zest, and flesh of just one whole orange and has a super tender crumb. Baked in a standard-sized loaf pan, it’s a simple yet delightful loaf cake that pairs perfectly with a cup of tea or a scoop of ice cream. You’ll just need 20 minutes of prep time before this is baked up in the oven for an hour until moist, fluffy, and flavorful.
I love orange flavor far more than I love eating oranges. So when I was recently gifted a half dozen oranges, I knew I wanted to bake with them. So I gave my popular lemon-blueberry cake recipe an orange makeover. I love a cake recipe with sour cream, so it was the perfect base to start tinkering with the orange flavor.
I also wanted use as much of the orange as possible. So my homemade orange cake recipe uses orange juice, flesh, and zest in the cake batter, and it uses orange zest and fresh orange juice to make the simple icing glaze. When you look closely at the cake crumb, you can see real flecks of orange when you slice it!
The bigger the better when it comes to picking the perfect orange for this homemade orange cake. While you can use any variety of orange, I liked the results I got best from a Valencia orange. I found Valencia oranges were a bit easier to juice and are sweeter than Naval oranges, which gave the cake a stronger orange flavor while also being slightly less work for me.
The different parts of the orange are used in a couple of different steps of this recipe, so make sure you read each step carefully to make sure you don't discard something you'll need later!
Optional Additions:
- For a wintery take on this cake recipe with sour cream, add a bit of cinnamon, ground cardamom, or cloves along with the dry ingredients.
- For an orange-creamsicle vibe, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract along with the final egg.
- For a crackly sugar top without the icing glaze, follow the instructions for the lemon-sugar topping in my lemon-blueberry pound cake recipe but replace the lemon zest with orange zest.
Get The Most Flavor Out of The Orange
From here, follow the creaming method of mixing. Being patient during the first step of creaming the butter and sugar together is particularly important for giving the orange cake a fluffy texture and a dramatic domed top.
When properly creamed together, the orange butter and sugar mixture will be pale in color, light, and fluffy. If you rub it between your fingers, the sugar granules should be almost entirely dissolved but still feel slightly gritty.
Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the orange pulp and sour cream mixture on the lowest speed to prevent over-mixing and ensure the cake has a moist, tender texture. Stop the mixer when there are a few streaks of flour left in the bowl. Finish mixing those in by hand. This also helps prevent over-mixing!
Use a mini offset spatula to smooth the batter out so the cake bakes evenly.
A line of butter down the middle controls where the cake cracks open on top.
A Perfectly Orange Icing Glaze
Take one of the orange quarters that hasn't been zested or juiced yet that you set aside earlier. Zesting an orange quarter isn't the easiest thing ever, but if you hold it over the bowl of powdered sugar, at least any juice dripping off will go where it needs to end up anyway.
USA Pan Bakeware Aluminized Steel Loaf Pan, 1 Pound
Dimensions: 8.5 x 4.5 x 2.75. Durable construction with corrugated surface for optimal airflow. Non-stick finish is PTFE, PFOA and BPA free.
💭 Have More Baking Questions?
I've rounded up answers to common baking questions and how-to guides, including:
- Ingredient swaps and FAQs
- Why my recipes are written in grams and not cups
- How to quickly bring eggs and butter to room temperature
- Ingredients I use (salt, flour, yeast, etc.)
- Step-by-step guides for bread and baking techniques
See my baking techniques & troubleshooting guide and ingredient swaps and FAQs for more!
📖 Recipe
Fresh Orange Pound Cake in a Loaf Pan (Sour Cream Cake)
Recipe Notes
- When in doubt, scrape down the bowl and beater. If it feels like you're stopping too often to scrape down the bowl, that means you're making this easy pound cake recipe right. You don't want any ingredients to go unincorporated or you'll end up with large air bubbles or clumps in your final cake.
- This orange pound cake can be stored at room temperature with an airtight cover for 4-5 days. You can also refrigerate it in an airtight container for up to a week.
- You can also freeze this orange pound cake for up to 3 months. Freeze it on a sheet tray to get the icing to set, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place it inside a resealable plastic bag with as much air pressed out as possible. Defrost in the fridge and let come to room temperature for serving.
- If the cake batter begins to look split or curdled as you're adding the eggs, don't sweat it too much. It will come back together when you add the flour
- Mixing the dry ingredients on the lowest possible speed and stopping as soon as they're all combined is super important. The goal is to avoid developing gluten in the cake batter, which would make your orange pound cake dense and tough.
- Make sure your baking powder is fresh! If you aren't sure, it's probably not. Baking powder is good for about 6 months, after that it loses its potency.
Ingredients
- 227 grams unsalted butter (65°F, softened)
- 227 grams sugar
- 10 grams orange zest (zest only)
- 227 grams all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt (use half as much of any other brand)
- 3 large eggs (room temperature)
- 50 grams full fat sour cream (room temperature)
- 50 grams orange juice + flesh
Orange Icing Glaze
- 60 grams powdered sugar
- 2 grams orange zest
- 15 grams orange juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Mise en Place. Bring butter and eggs to room temperature (the butter should be cool, around 65°F, but soft to the touch, not melty or greasy). Measure sugar and orange zest into the bowl of your stand mixer. In another container, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together 50g sour cream with 50g orange juice and orange pulp/flesh. Reserve at least a quarter of the orange with the peel on and un-juiced to make the glaze later. Grease an 8x4" loaf pan and line with a parchment paper sling. Set aside.
- Infuse the sugar. In the bowl of your stand mixer, use your fingers to rub the orange zest into the sugar until it is orange and fragrant.
- Cream the butter and sugar. Add the softened butter to the bowl. Beat on low speed until there's no loose sugar, then increase speed to medium and continue creaming for 3-5 minutes, pausing to scrape down the bowl and the beater at least 3 times. Properly creamed, the butter and sugar will have a fluffy, airy, and paste-like texture and pale orange color. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add eggs. One at a time, crack each egg into a small bowl (to avoid getting shells in your cake!) then dump the egg into the mixer bowl, beating on medium speed for at least 60 seconds and scraping down the bowl again before adding the next egg. Scrape down the bowl again after the last egg has been added.
- Alternate adding dry ingredients and sour cream. With the mixer running on the lowest possible speed, add half of the dry ingredients. When they are mostly combined, scrape down the bowl and beater. Add the orange sour cream mixture and mix on low just until combined, then stop and scrape the bowl and beater again. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix on low just until just a few streaks of flour remain. Scrape down the bowl and beater and finish mixing by hand with a spatula to prevent over mixing.
- Bake. Scrape the batter into the parchment-lined loaf pan. Use a mini offset spatula to smooth out the batter, pressing it down into the corners and sides of the pan so that there aren't any trapped air bubbles. [OPTIONAL] Cut a ⅛-inch thin slice of a stick of butter into small sticks and arrange them in a line down the middle length of the pan to help control the crack in the top of the loaf as it bakes. Bake in the center of a 350°F oven for 60-65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs clinging to it.
- Cool. Remove the pan to a cooling rack. Let cool 10-15 minutes, then use the parchment sling to lift the cake out of the pan to finish cooling. Let cool completely before slicing.
Orange Icing Glaze
- Sift powdered sugar into a small mixing bowl. Add orange zest and juice. Whisk together until smooth. Add more juice to thin it out or more powdered sugar to thicken it.
- Use a mini offset spatula to spread the glaze over the top of the loaf cake. Let sit to form a crust or serve immediately!
Sue says
If you place eggs in hot water for 10-15 minutes as indicated in the tips, you will have hard cooked eggs. Is it supposed to say 10 to 15 seconds?
Rebecca Eisenberg says
Hot tap water, not boiling water. Regular hot water won't cook eggs that are cold from the refrigerator; it will just bring them to room temperature.
Chef Tonya says
No, because the eggs are cold from the fridge. They will quickly warm up in the water but the water will turn cool pretty quick. 10-15 minutes and the water will be more like room temperature along with the eggs.
Wendy Jones says
Wondering where the baking soda goes in? Mentioned in the ingredients list but not in the mixing instructions.
Rebecca Eisenberg says
Ooops, that's an error! No baking soda needed!
Roberta says
Hello,can I use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour?tq
Rebecca Eisenberg says
I don’t recommend it! Cake flour is very different from all purpose, the recipe won’t turn out.
Julia Heyward says
Why are the dry ingredients measured in grams?
Rebecca Eisenberg says
For accuracy.
Julia A Heyward says
That doesn't help those of us who use cup or lesser amounts thereof which are also accurate. I don't understand the "accurate" comment.
Rebecca Eisenberg says
Cup measurements are highly inconsistent and also depending on how you scoop the flour you may end up with a lot more than the recipe developer (hello, that's me) actually used which means your bake may not turn out properly. Read my post about why using a kitchen scale is worth it for more info.
Becky says
Can you use USA measurements, please.
Rebecca Eisenberg says
No.
Sincerely,
A recipe developer in the USA
Jules says
The recipe lists ingredients for an orange sugar topping that I'm not seeing mentioned in the instructions, and I'm not seeing measurements for the orange glaze (although that might just be the internet browser on my phone). Would it be possible to get measurements for the glaze?
Rebecca Eisenberg says
OMG I am so sorry. Because this is a riff on my blueberry lemon cake I duplicated that recipe card and updated it to create this recipe but clearly I missed a section! Will update that now! Thanks for pointing that out!
Heidi Coates says
Thank you for giving the weight measurements. They are indeed far more accurate. That is why the professional bakers use them. I bought my little scale years ago and used it ever since.
Debbie Human says
It was very nice, will make it again!
Angela says
I want to make this look a little fancy. Can I bake it in a bundt pan?
Rebecca Eisenberg says
Yep!
Ang says
Can this be baked in a bundt pan?
Rebecca Eisenberg says
Yep!
Marie Nelson says
It doesn't read boiling water. It reads hot water and no, they won't be hard cooked.
EllieJay says
This was easy to make and delicious! I followed it exactly although used a bit more zest. My family enjoyed this so much, I can see how you could easily use the same recipe and change out the orange for other flavors like lemon poppyseed.
Rebecca Eisenberg says
I'm so glad you enjoyed the cake, Ellie! A little more zest is always a good idea 🙂 And you can definitely adapt this to make lots of other flavors — if you're looking for lemon poppyseed, you may want to check out my lemon blueberry pound cake as a base recipe, too. Happy baking!
Megan Holm says
Can this recipe be gluten free?
Rebecca Eisenberg says
I haven't tested it but you can probably use cup-for-cup gluten free all purpose flour and it should work! Good luck!
Dee says
I have made this recipe several times. It's the most fantastic orange cake ever! it's moist with a tender crumb. It will stay fresh for a long time in the refrigerator, even several weeks, and the flavor only improves with age. Thank you for this recipe!!