Blood Orange Cake is THE dessert to make if you want to up your baking game! It’s easier to make than you’d think, with just a vanilla cake topped with blood orange slices. Think pineapple upside down cake, but with the sweet tartness of blood orange! It’s beautiful to look at and a pretty simple bake, and perfect as we start transiting from winter to spring in the coming months!
Blood Orange Upside Down Cake
Ingredients
- 19 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp (270g)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200g)
- 2/3 cup brown sugar (130g)
- 4 medium-sized blood oranges this will vary depending on the size of the oranges you can find, I find that blood oranges tend to be rather small. I recommend buying a few more than you may need, and worst case you can just eat them!
- 1 cup fine cornmeal (122g)
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (65g)
- 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 4 large eggs, room temp
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 inch cake pan, either with cooking spray or softened butter. (I used cooking spray and had no issue with the cake releasing from the pan)
- In a small saucepan, add 3 tbsp of butter and melt over medium heat. Be careful not to over heat the butter, you just want it to melt. Once the butter has melted, add the brown sugar and fresh lemon juice, and stir continuously over medium heat until the sugar melts and the mixture becomes homogenous; it should take only a few minutes. Once done, pour the mix into the prepared cake pan, making sure that you get all of it out of the saucepan. It should spread across the bottom of the cake pan without issue, so no need to maneuver the pan around or anything to spread the sugar/butter mix.
- Take one of the oranges and grate the zest from it entirely and set the zest aside in a small dish. Next, slice the tops and bottoms off the oranges, and then carefully slice the peel and pith off the orange, following the curve of the orange. You should be left with small pith-free globes of blood orange. Turn them on their sides and carefully slice 1/4" slices from the oranges, making sure to discard seeds as necessary (I missed a few when I was baking mine!)
- Carefully place the orange slices down in the brown sugar layer in the cake pan, as close together as you can. I recommend placing as many large slices as you can, and then use smaller slices to fill in any gaps left. Make sure they're all in one layer though, with no overlaps.
- In a large bowl, add the orange zest, cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt, and whisk to combine before setting aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the rest of the butter (should be 2 sticks) and the granulated sugar. Cream the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed, and then beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides as necessary. Once the eggs have been added, beat in the sour cream and the vanilla. Once the mixture is smooth (relatively, it may look a bit chunky, or almost curdled, and that's ok, just make sure all the ingredients are mixed) add half of the dry ingredients and gently fold in by hand, and then add the rest and fold in until the batter is homogenous.
- Pour the batter carefully over the orange and sugar layer in the cake pan. Use a spatula to smooth out the batter if necessary, to make sure it's an even thickness throughout. Bake the cake for 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the pan, and then carefully run a knife along the edge of the cake to help separate it from the pan. Place a plate or serving dish upside down over top of the cake pan, and then quickly invert them both and the cake should release from the pan down onto the serving dish.
- Allow the cake to cool completely before serving. Enjoy!
