orange spice cake.

I made my own cake! This is a variation on a vanilla cake, but I feel that there are enough tweaks for me to consider it my own.

It is an orange spice cake, as is obvious from the title. The cake itself is fluffy and not super dense. It is lightly flavored with spices & orange zest, and there is a special addition that makes the cake so moist and mellow-flavored.

Ricotta! I had some ricotta left from a zucchini ricotta galette I had made, and I incorporated it into the cake to add some substance and to create a nicer crumb.

Click to enlarge. Locate specks of zest & spices. Do it now. Kay, thanks (: 

I believe a light & fluffy cream cheese frosting would go well sandwiched between this cake. I myself used some orange cream cheese frosting I had left over, but I think that a plain tangy cream cheese frosting would be a good foil to the flavors of the cake. The cake is only lightly spiced, so the flavors should be able to shine through instead of being overpowered by a flavored frosting.

I also only frosted some of the cake, like a quarter of it. The rest, I cut into wedges, and my family ate it for dessert & with tea.

Orange Spice Cake
recipe created by myself.

• 1 1/3 cups flour (used my usual half whole wheat & all-purpose) 
• 1 tspn cinnamon 
• 1/2 tspn cloves 
• 1/2 tspn baking powder 
• 1/2 tspn baking soda 
• 1/8 tspn cloves 
• 1/4 tspn salt 

Mix dry ingredients together.

• 2 Tb ghee 
• 2 Tb oil 
• 1 cup sugar 

Cream fats & sugar. 

• 1/2 cup ricotta (I used whole milk, because that's what I had) 
• zest of one orange 
• 1 egg 
• 1 tspn vanilla 

Add the above ingredients to make the wet mixture. 

• 1/2 cup buttermilk 

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the wet mixture. Start and end with the dry mixture.

Transfer batter to 2 greased round cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes. Continue checking, as baking times depend on your oven. Tester should come out clean after being inserted in the center.

Frost with plain or cinnamon-spiced cream cheese frosting. Or eat plain with tea.