This orange and strawberry cake is perfect to welcome summers and bid adieu to the glorious strawberry season! Tangy and sweet, this is a perfect tea time cake!
Winters have ended which means no more strawberries in India (well Delhi at least) and you have no idea how sad that makes me. My favorite ingredient is no longer in season and I have to wait a WHOLE YEAR to start baking with it. It’s heart breaking to be honest! So I thought why bake something that will do justice to my favourite berry and mark the beginning of the season I dread the most with something ever so marvelous as this Orange and Strawberry Summer Cake.
Luckily I come from a city that has a lot fabulous bakeries. If I had to pick my favorite bakeries in Delhi or cake shops in Delhi..I couldn’t! It’s so hard to pick just a few when every place has its own identity and own specialty. Elma’s is famous for its red velvet cake and high tea (highly recommended), L’opera for its almond croissant, Defence Bakery for its breads, Theos, Angels in My Kitchen and Whipped for their cakes, Sugarama for its decadent macarons and last but not least Wengers for almost everything! Oh and let’s not forget the new kid on the block..The Big Chill Cakery by same old The Big Chill Café that we have all come to love so much! That place is the new go to place for all cake lovers in Delhi because of its delectable spread of desserts. Now who can pick just one? All I can say if you’re looking for me this summer..you’ll find me in one of the bakeries in Delhi enjoying a piece of cake, hopefully with strawberries!
Back to my Orange and Strawberry Summer Cake..this cake is eggless but still as soft and moist as a cake with egg. It’s everything you need this summer to refresh you and give you that burst of fruits! The cake base is a sweet and tangy orange cake which is softer than marshmallows (well almost :p) with fresh strawberries in the centre and on top! Now this recipe makes one 6” cake but the same batter can make a 7” cake too. This cake takes about 45 minutes to bake because it’s really high but if you have a bigger tin the baking time will reduce because naturally the batter will spread making a thinner cake. If you didn’t know already, baking time depends on the height of the cake and not the diameter, a cake with a 6” diameter but 2.5” height will take longer to baker than a 8”x2” cake. So make sure you adjust the time according to your tin.
This cake is a bakers dream really! Get your tools ready and get baking because strawberries ain’t gonna wait for no one..haha ! 😀
- • All purpose flour (maida), 1 ¼ cup or 160 grams approx.
- • Baking powder, 1 teaspoon
- • Softened butter, ½ cup or 100 grams
- • Caster sugar, ½ cup or 100 grams approx.
- • Buttermilk*, ½ cup or 120 ml (learn how to make instant buttermilk below)
- • Orange zest, of 1 orange
- • Fresh orange juice, 4 tablespoons
- • Vanilla essence, 1 teaspoon
- • Strawberries, 5-6 (sliced in half)
- • Strawberries, 7-8 (chopped in cubes)
- *To make buttermilk take a cup of milk (or 240ml) and heat it, once it reaches a boil add a tablespoon of lemon juice to it. Boil the milk until it curdles, then sieve out the curdled part and use the remaining liquid as buttermilk. Let it cool down completely before you use it.
- Grease a 6” round baking tin and line it with butter or parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes.
- Whisk butter until light and fluffy for a couple of minutes then add in the caster sugar and vanilla essence and whisk again until everything is creamed together.
- Add in the orange zest and orange juice, mix it in.
- Sieve in the flour and baking powder directly in the bowl with wet ingredients. Add in the buttermilk little by little; do not whisk it, only mix using a spatula very lightly until you no longer see dry flour. The batter will be slightly thin but that’s okay! Mix in the chopped strawberries until evenly dispersed.
- Pour the batter in the prepared tin, arrange sliced strawberries on top of it and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the cake is done at 180 degrees Celsius. If you’re using a bigger tin reduce the baking time (read the post above for details).
- Let the cake to cool completely before you take it out of the tin.
- Serve with tea, store in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Reblogged this on Highchair Chow.
When to add strawberries? You haven’t mentioned it anywhere.
Hi Mahak! Sorry my bad :p It’s rectified now. Thank you so much for letting me know!! 🙂 let me know if you make this cake.
Hi Radhika,
The cake looks really delicious. cant wait to try it! I was hoping if you could tell me which oven do you use for baking? Somebody suggested me a round oven the other day, i don’t know if you have heard about it but would really appreciate any advice.
Hi Juhi, I’ve used two ovens..started off with Morphy Richards, now using Bajaj Platini. Getting a new in-built one soon! 🙂 I have no clue what a round oven is though. Morphy Richards and Bajaj are great to start off with. Make sure the oven you choose has a fan to ensure even baking. 🙂
Hey Radhika,
Made this cake and to my horror, it wa nothing close to soft. It was flavourfull, tangy and tasty, no second thoughts about that but the texture was a tad dense.
The only difference was the baking tin as i used the square 8×8 but I highly diubt it that can alter the character of a cake.
Any suggestions?
Hi Mona, thanks for writing to me. You’re right, baking in a different sized tin has no impact on the texture of the cake. The softness and lightness of the cake depends on how you mix the ingredients. Please read my post to know how you can bake super soft cakes each time: http://sugarnspicebyradhika.in/2015/06/21/secrets-to-making-light-and-fluffy-cakes/
Hi Radhika
Can I make this cake with gluten free flour? Will I have to change the measurement of any of the ingredients?
Thanks
Hi Poon! I don’t work with gluten free flour, so no idea about this unfortunately. Sorry!