Blood Orange Sour Cream Cakes

Wonderfully moist sour cream orange cakes, made in mini bundts and finished with a gorgeous pink glaze from blood oranges. This is a stunning and easy recipe! 

The sweet pink color in the frosting comes from blood oranges. They are just so gorgeous when you cut them in two, fiery shades of orange and yellow, no two alike.

It makes for a whimsical glaze, don't you think? I always like using natural foods to create colors in my baking. It just makes sense. Like this almond cake with a raspberry glaze, simply stunning.

Blood oranges vs regular ones

It's subtle.

Here the blood variety is pretty much the same in shape as the regular ones (image below) we use for juice, but the inside is bursting with dark oranges and yellows and maybe reds with an ochre base, very like a ball of burning flames.

They are quite sweet, and though many say sweeter than regular ones, I find them to have a slight acid berry undertone. Really great oranges, I just love them. The color alone makes them taste better or what? haha.

Anyway, they are wonderful and worth buying and trying.

This particular cake is one of my favorites, a take on the lemon-lime pound cake, one of the best recipes in its kind, hands down.

Moist, sweet, gorgeous tight crumb, easy to make and a good base to let your imagination fly, with citruses or spices or nuts...

I just had to use these blood oranges in a simple sour cream cake to bring out their flavor and make use of that gorgeous red juice in the glaze. Who can blame me?

Sour cream in cakes

Sour cream makes for a denser cake with a tighter, richer crumb.

It cuts wonderfully and I personally like them for loaf cakes, since they remain moist for a few days and can be toasted easily (this is best done with a day old cake).

It also gives it a golden crust and in some cases cuts through some of the sweetness, due to the acid in it. It really is cream with acidic content, a by-product from the days when fresh milk had its own layer of cream, and all of it was used for different purposes.

Top tips 

• Oranges: the name implies using blood oranges of course, but this is a great orange cake recipe to make year-round. The color of the blood oranges gives the batter a funny hue (image above) but the result after baking is wonderful. 
• Pans: I used a small mini bundt cakes pan (image below). You can make regular mini bundts (as in the Coffee Chocolate Bundts) and the recipe will yield about 12 cakes. Or make a good old large bundt like our vanilla poppy seed bundt. 
• Storing: the unglazed cakes freeze wonderfully, well wrapped. 

Other recipes you might like:

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Blood Orange Sour Cream Cakes

★★★★★ 5 from 9 reviews

• Author: Paula Montenegro
• Prep Time: 15
• Cook Time: 20
• Total Time: 35 minutes
• Yield: 24 mini cakes 1x
• Category: Cakes
• Method: Baking
• Cuisine: International

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Description

Wonderfully moist Sour Cream orange Cakes, made in mini bundts and finished with a gorgeous pink glaze from blood oranges. This is a stunning and easy recipe!

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

For the cake:

• 3 ¼ cups cake flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 9 oz (255g) unsalted butter, at room tº
• 8 oz (225g) sour cream, at room tº
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Juice from half an orange
• Zest from 2 oranges

For the glaze:

• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons orange juice

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Instructions

For the cake:

1. Preheat oven 350ºC.
2. Butter or spray 12 mini bundt cake pans, or two 9×4 loaf pans, or 1 large bundt cake pan.
3. In a large bowl beat butter and sour cream until smooth, about 1 minute. Add orange zest and mix.
4. Add sugar gradually and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes more.
5. Add eggs, one at a time, incorporating well each one before adding the next. Add vanilla and juice.
6. Sift flour with baking soda and salt and add it to the butter mixture at low speed, in 2 additions, beating only until well mixed. Don’t overbeat.
7. Pour into the pans and bake for 45 minutes, or until golden and cracked on top and a tester comes out clean.
8. Let cool for 10 minutes, and then unmold. Let cool completely before glazing.

For the glaze:

1. Mix powdered sugar and juice until smooth. Pour slowly over the cakes letting it slide to the sides.

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Keywords: blood orange cakes, blood orange mini cakes

Paula Montenegro

I'm Paula, a baker for more than 30 years and your designated recipe finder, sharing the best ones on this blog, with simple ingredients + easy-to-follow instructions.