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 ! 😀
RECIPE: Orange and Strawberry Summer Cake
Make: One 6” cake Prep Time: 20 minutes Baking Time: 45 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- 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.
METHOD
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! Add chopped strawberries to the batter and mix. Pour the batter in the prepared tin and top the batter with sliced strawberries. 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.
sugarnspicebyradhika.wordpress.com 
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.
This looks so delicious! I don’t know why but my eggless cake always sinks! I have tried using bananas, dates, flax powder, yoghurt & what not as an egg substitute but nothing helped! 😦
Hi Pallavi! So sorry for missing your comment. Anyway, it’s likely that you’re whisking your cakes too much. Whisking incorporates air, which makes the cake rise in the oven but eventually sink once it’s out. I recommend whisking butter and sugar as much as you can and then ditching the whisk altogether. Use a spatula or a wooden spoon to mix in the dry ingredients. That will ensure that you don’t add in any extra air. Whisking butter and sugar is essential though, that’s what makes your cake crumbly, so do that but nothing more! 🙂
Hey! I tried the strawberry and orange cake yesterday. Everybody loved it. It came out to be super moist and that tangy flavour was much appreciated. 🙂
Hi Diksha! Thank you so much for reporting back! I’m so glad you and your family enjoyed it 🙂 Hope you’ll try making it again soon! 🙂
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