Tender Orange Poppy Seed Cake layers with a delicious mascarpone frosting. The perfect combination of three unique flavors.
Every time I make a cheese based frosting, I swear it will be my last. They are SO difficult to work with. I know I could make them more stable, but I’d have to either add more cheese or more sugar — neither of which I want to do. So I’m stuck with a delicious tasting but less stable frosting. It is what it is.
Honestly, the only reason I keep making them is because they taste so good. Not too cheesy, not too sweet, and they complement certain cakes just perfectly. Like this Orange Poppy Seed Cake!
I’ve had a lemon poppy seed cake on my radar for a while now. I have a Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt (which was delicious), but I’d been meaning to make it into a layer cake for some time. Alas, it got pushed off yet again because I thought orange poppy seed would be a more interesting and unique flavor to try. If you’d rather do lemon, you can swap it in easily enough.
What kind of oranges should I use?
I am not an expert on oranges. I’ve currently been eating my way through bags of flavorful mandarins, but otherwise oranges are never a staple around here. If you’re an orange expert and have a favorite, go with what you love. Otherwise, good old navel oranges will work. Blood orange would work well too! I used Cava Cava Navel.
How to Make this Orange Poppy Seed Cake
This cake uses my favorite Vanilla Cake recipe as a base. I simply replaced some of the milk with orange juice and added orange zest and poppy seeds.
It’s a bit harder to get orange flavor to come through than lemon — it’s less potent overall. You could use an extract, but if you know me at all you know I prefer to use natural flavors when possible, and only use an extract when there’s really no other option. The key to getting that orange flavor to shine through is in the zest. Never skip the zest!
By the way, if you’re looking for a good zester, the ones from Microplane are the absolute best. You get a superfine zest without any of the pith. Works like a charm every time.
Another way to add flavour is to use a simple syrup. Brushing the cake layers with an orange flavored simple syrup will add flavor and also moisture to you cake.
For the poppy seeds, I toss them with my flour mixture. I find this is easiest, and there is less risk of over-mixing the batter rather than if you were to add them at the end.
How to Make Mascarpone Frosting
This mascarpone frosting goes so well with this orange poppy seed cake! It’s subtle and not overpowering like a cream cheese frosting can be, but it gives it a unique and delicious flavor.
I won’t bore you with the details about how annoying the frosting was to work with — the naked cake I ended up going with should be an indication of how things went (lol).
I intended to fully frost this cake and do something rustic with the sides, but that was a total fail. The frosting was both soft and full of air bubbles, and all attempts to make an “easy” rustic swirl were futile. I ended up scraping the whole thing off and letting the pretty poppy seed studded sides shine through.
The frosting recipe makes enough to cover the whole cake though, and I’d recommend doing that because it’s so delicious. Maybe you’ll have better luck decorating than I did?
Styling inspo for this cake came from the lovely MaryAnne over at Little Epicurean. Can I just say how happy I was to find mandarin oranges with the leaves still attached?! Non-shriveled leaves at that.
This cake did not last long around here. I had to stop myself from inhaling an entire slice as I was cleaning the kitchen afterwards. Have I mentioned I have a weakness for citrus desserts?? I hope you love this cake recipe as much as I do!
Looking for more Citrus Cakes?
- Lemon Elderflower Cake
- Lemon Blueberry Cake
- Lime & Coconut Cake
- Key Lime Pie Cake
- Cranberry Orange Cake
This post was originally published on 04/12/19 and was updated with new content on 01/06/22.
