For this cake, I combined 2 different recipes to bring this together and veganize it, I will link those 2 recipes at the bottom.
Cake Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
zest of 1 orange
juice of 1 orange (put in liquid measuring cup)
non-dairy milk of your choosing (add to orange juice, you want 3/4 cup liquid total between the 2)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 /2 teaspoon vanilla
Icing Ingredients
1 stick of butter (room temperature)
2 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon orange blossom water
food coloring (optional)
To bake the cake: preheat oven to 350. Set the stick of butter (for the icing) out on the counter now so that it has time to get to room temperature. Lightly grease a pan, I used an 8 inch round pan. 9 inch should also work, or a square pan should be ok too. I cut a circle out of parchment paper and used that to line the bottom of my pan just to be sure it would be easy to remove. Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cardamom in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the orange juice, orange zest, milk, sugar, brown sugar, olive oil, and vanilla. Once wet ingredients are well mixed, add them to the dry ingredients and mix together until there are no large lumps remaining. A few small lumps are ok. Pour batter into pan. I like to shake or spin the pan a bit to try to get the top smoother before baking. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Mine was done at 30 minutes.
Once cake is cool, make icing. Mix together the butter, powdered sugar, and salt until smooth. Add orange blossom water, vanilla, and food coloring if desired. I added about 2 drops of red and 5 of yellow. Mix until smooth and even in color. Take cake out of pan and ice the cake! Eat and enjoy!
This is a recipe where you can totally play around with flavors. The original recipe that I looked at had rose water instead of orange blossom water in the icing, so you could substitute that. If you don’t have either, I think it would be fine to substitute orange juice instead, or just add a little extra vanilla or almond to the icing.
If you don’t have an orange on hand for the zest and milk, I would try using orange juice for most or all of the liquid (no milk) and see how that goes.
You could really play around with whatever flavors you have on hand that might go well together!
I might try this with lime and ginger instead of orange and cardamom!
Here is a link to the recipe that gave me the flavor ideas: https://frostingandfettuccine.com/orange-cardamom-cake-with-rose-buttercream/?fbclid=IwAR1YRKpNmU1Yj7JhJZJxyA01qtIUW5g93xDlVYetaCU7euNTFAdWwC-fYKc
I needed to modify it because it uses a ton of eggs and make 3 cakes! and since we’re in the middle of a pandemic, I don’t have enough people to share that with, so I needed less cake.
Here is a link to the basic cake recipe that I modified a bit for these flavors: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/vanilla-cake-pan-cake-recipe
It’s a pretty solid cake recipe so you can’t go wrong if you want to make it as is.
Happy Potato 