Problems with my Magical orange cake :(

Hi
Im new to baking. I made a recipe from trademe called magical orange cake.
My cake tuurned out with a beautiful texture. . but it was so bitter. . is it meant to taste so bitter? So bitter i couldnt eat it. . i used 1 whole orange processed in a food processor til it was pulp. .

Also along the entire bottom of my cake was a 1cm uncooked substance... i dont think it was uncooked cake batter. . it looked more like orange pulp that had been liquified and then re set. .
What did i do wrong? ?
Any help would be fantastic!

reese, was the orange you used a very thick-skinned one? That IMO is the most likely cause of your cake being so bitter i. e. there was too much of the white pith - I prefer to use a thin-skinned orange and also, for preference so there are no pips, I use a navel orange.

Re: "Also along the entire bottom of my cake was a 1cm uncooked substance... i dont think it was uncooked cake batter. . it looked more like orange pulp that had been liquified and then re set. . " - again here I suspect that the problem was the excess amount of thick skin/pith and if that's not the likely cause of the problem I hope someone else can advise you further.

Please do try making that cake again using my suggestion of a thin-skinned Navel orange. Good luck. :-))

Mmm, yes I've made this recipe before and didn't realise I needed a food processor - was not a success.

Thankyou for the advice :)

I used a navel orange . . im thinking maybe it was the skin that made it so very bitter. .

i will try again!

sumstyle, although I haven't done so myself, I understand that it IS quite possible to successfully make the Magical Orange Cake without a food processor. These are the instructions that I have on file for doing so... . .

“Old-fashioned” / No Food Processor method:
Mix together the melted butter and sugar, add the egg, then the orange pulp. Stir to combine, then fold in the sifted self-raising flour. - It is of course still necessary to reduce the orange to a pulp.

Hope that helps. :-))

You're most welcome reese, and please do let us know how your next Magical Orange Cake turns out - hopefully a real success, especially IMO if you're sure to use a thin skinned orange - most likely that will need to be an imported one. I do prefer wherever possible to buy NZ produce but I found recently (by picking several of them up and holding them) that the very nice looking NZ grown oranges that were on special were more skin that anything else whilst the not-on-special imported ones felt the way I would want them to be (especially for that cake). :-))

Hi Shirley. . hope all is well for you there. . :-)

Hi Reese. . to use a NZ navel orange, the peel could be thinly removed using a vege peeler, then peel off and discard the white pith. . then use the rest of the orange. . so you're processing the thin orange peel and the flesh for the cake. .

Hope this helps. . :-)

Hmmmm... interesting. I've made this cake several times since it was posted and it has been a BIG hit. Have passed on the recipe to several friends/family. BUT when I made it last week, with an Australian navel orange (bought as was 2. 99 kg as opposed to NZ 3. 99 kg) it tasted bitter, so I made a mental note not to use Oz oranges again!

Imported oranges are picked green and chemically dyed to make the skins a nice, even orange colour. theoretically they ripen in the shipping and storing process with the help of a gas.

That could be the reason for the bitterness and why they don't have much pith.

I won't make any comment on the lack of good health involved with eating dyed green orange skins bathed, long term in gas let alone the chemicals sprayed on trees all through the growing season - stuff to combat mould, aphids, leaf curl and so on.

Uh, buzzy, you just did.

l am munching on one l have just made with a cheap orange and no problem with taste but it has the thin rind
Do try it again as it is worth it and that taste is really nice and thesmell when it is cooking makes me drool
Try peeling and taking the pith out like mentioned above and l just put all the ingredients in at once and processed in the one go
Good luck

this is exactly what I do. Works

Thanks for post 5 sam245. Do you think if I thoroughly zested the orange, then use the segments, pulped appropriately it would work the same?

could you use manderins for this cake. ? ? ? ? or maybe lemons. I havent made this yet, but intend to today... . .

Aslso have posted this in the other thread
Tips and Tricks
Strawberry and choc chip

I used the basic recipe and add a 1/2 cup choc chips and a cup of chopped strawberries that I folded through. I added a 1/2 cup milk to replace the orange juice from the fruit. .

I put a tin of pears in I strained the juice syrup out into a cup and used the pears as you would the oranges, when it was still hot brush the cake with a little pear syrup

add sultanas to the cake mixture When I made the orange cake I just added sultanas to the cake mixture added them last and just hand mixed them.

The tinned strawberry and chocolate chip combination was excellent! ) Just remember to drain all the liquid from the tin and roughly chop the strawberries before proceeding with the recipe. Also added handful each of coconut and chocolate chips, plus I sprinkled the top with more coconut before baking. I have a mini loaf tray so baked the mixture in those. (Makes 6)

1 large apple (I cored it as I wasn't sure how the pips would go) Also added a small handful of sultanas and about 1 tsp cinnamon. baked in my cute 6 mini-loaves tray decorate the tops of each of them with about 4 slices of apple,

I made this today but used 1 banana and 4 fejoa's and its divine, I also made it as a chocolate cake and replaced the fruit with one yoghurt (apricot) and added 2 tablspns of cocoa

two bananas, then after the batter was in the tin, she sprinkled chocolate chips across the top. Pushed some in a little and left the others on top - this made a nice topping. We used some with custard for dessert, and have used Nutella as an icing for the rest

Blood Orange Cake The local store had Blood Oranges for sale so tried the cake with these. For those who don't know what a blood orange is, it is an orange with red (almost like beetroot red) skin and beetroot red flesh. The cake came out a really neat pinky-red colour wuth flecks of red. Tasted wonderful

five figs 1/4 tspoon cinnimon 1/4 tspoon cloves 1/4 tspoon nutmeg everything else the same.

Orange & cream cheese muffins... . . Tried this recipe as muffins, adding chopped dates and a blob of cream cheese in the middle of muffin before cooking.

Orange and Dates
... YUM! Made this combination last night into muffin size and it was a great success. Just smoosh up about 1/2 a cup or so of dates when you are pulping the orange. Topped off with lemon cream cheese icing

pineapple cake I made it again with a tin of crushed pineapple in juice. Needed a bit of extra flour but it turned out great and didn't even need processing, just mixed in a bowl. Nice as a pudding too.

Made lemon today with 2 lemons - really tart but poked holes all over the cooked cake and poured 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 sugar mixed which was simply divine.

i made this delicious cake 2day. . but i doubled the recipe and used 2 c raspberries instead of the orange

GRAPEFRUIT sprinkled a little coconut and cho chips on top before popping it in the oven. Took a little longer than the cooking time suggested though. I used a decent sized yellow coloured grapefruit.

a tin of apricots drained, but with a slurp of the juice back in and a packet of chopped pecans.

Lime and Coconut Cake was absolutely scrummy- used 2 limes instead of orange and added coconut and an extra egg- iced with lime butter icing with v finely grated lime rhind

a block of whittakers white choc and macademia nuts broke it into single pieces and potted it on top of cake then submerged it a bit once it came out of oven and had cooled I grated white choc on top, I finished this off with 2 tins of mandarins on the side with freshly whipped cream, and I have to say that it went down very well - I took it to friends and was on dessert and they raved about it. - dont know if anyone has done this version yet but both thumbs for this one.

If you use thin skinned fruit you don't have to peel it, but if like us you have very thick skinned oranges, then peel and use the zest, trim off