The Best Orange Cake Recipe | Simple. Tasty. Good. (2024)

FAQs

How do you make an orange cake less bitter? ›

Solution: boil the oranges. This removes the bitterness as well as softening the oranges to make them “jammy”, which makes the cake damp and sticky inside.

Enhance With Extracts

Pure vanilla extract and pure almond extract are great options, but you could also try lemon extract or orange extract paired with fresh citrus zest. Although more expensive, vanilla bean paste or fresh vanilla beans will provide even richer flavor to a boxed mix.

Adding extra eggs when baking a cake brings out a lighter and richer flavor, making your dessert even more delicious! Baking tip #6: Adding a touch of vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon to be exact, is all it takes to make your box cake taste better, even homemade.

You may have grated into the pith (the white part of orange skin) instead of just zesting the orange part. This tastes very bitter and can affect the flavour quite a bit. You may have over reduced (boiled) the sticky orange syrup which resulted in it burning a little. Burnt orange tastes very bitter.

Overmixing: Overmixing the batter can lead to the development of gluten, which can result in a dense and tough texture. Overmixing can also introduce more air into the batter, which may cause certain compounds to react and create a bitter taste. Overbaking: Baking the cake for too long can lead to a.

Step 1: Look at the directions on the cake mix. Step 2: Add one more egg (or add 2 if you want it to be very rich). Step 3: Use melted butter instead of oil and double the amount. Step 4: Instead of water, use whole milk.

Put some pudding in the mix: Add a small box of pudding mix in with the cake mix. (Don't make the pudding.) The mix adds additional flavor, moistness, and a denser texture.

Should you beat eggs before adding to cake mix? ›

For chemically-leavened cakes — that is, cakes calling for baking powder or baking soda — it's OK if you don't remember to add the eggs until the end. Martina says, “Late in the mixing stage, eggs will incorporate better if you lightly beat them before adding to the batter.

Using too few eggs will make your desserts dense, but using too many will make them rubbery. The explanation for this lies in the fact that eggs are made up of protein. As Fine Cooking explains, when the protein in eggs combines with the protein in flour, they produce the overall structure of the baked good.

Eggs: 3 whole eggs provide structure, moisture, and richness. 2 extra egg whites keep the cake light and airy. I don't recommend using 4 whole eggs; stick to the 3 egg & 2 egg white combination. Here are recipes using leftover egg yolks.

One way to fix a bitter cake is to add a small amount of an acidic component, which is highly recommended especially when you toss in too much baking soda. If your cake recipe contains chocolate, you can add a ½ teaspoon of cocoa powder. Here are some other ingredients you can try: Lemon juice.

Use of baking soda while baking or making cake, makes the cake taste bitter due to the formation of Sodium carbonate during heating. Hence, to neutralize the formed sodium carbonate and its bitter taste, we use tartaric acid. As an acid tartaric acid neutralizes the base effect of Sodium bicarbonate.

To eliminate bitterness in an orange cake, it's crucial to remove the seeds and the white pith of the oranges before using them. Boiling the oranges, as done in this recipe, helps reduce bitterness by softening and removing some of the compounds responsible for the bitter taste.

Since it's nearly impossible to remove the pith completely, the best way to get the bitter out is blanching the zest three times, by dropping it into boiling water to release the bitterness, then shocking it with ice water to stop the cooking (and repeat, and repeat).