I looooooove marmalade! Though I hated it as a kid. Amazing what growing up can do, right? 🙂 My mom put a very expensive jar of marmalade in my stocking at Christmas one year—aren’t Moms great?—and I used some to make my very first marmalade cake. It was a disaster—it collapsed all over the plate when I removed it from the pan!

The crumbs tasted so delectable, though, that I decided to give it another go and try to fix the recipe. My second try at this cake was good, very orangey. Then I thought perhaps I had made the wrong decision about the recipe the first time, and tried it again. It was not better than my second try, and the second recipe used less processed food and therefore had less chemicals in the cake. The second cake, my variation, was the winner and the one I am posting.

I found the original recipe on Folgers.com where it was called Orange Cake. I tried it because I had that very expensive marmalade, but the recipe was a problem from the beginning. It didn’t seem like there was enough butter to “cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy“—I’d followed the recipe anyway. The second problem was the recipe called for a box of instant vanilla pudding, which I didn’t notice at first, and it didn’t specify what size box of instant pudding. So in the middle of mixing the first cake, I went to the store for a box of instant vanilla pudding. My store only carried the vanilla-flavored in one size, so I thought, OK, vanilla instant pudding only comes in the large box, so I bought and used it—you know how that ended. Total tasty disaster. So I decided to adjust the recipe and find a real food substitute for the pudding.  A search of the Internet told me that was probably not a good idea because the recipe probably relied on the chemical thickening agents and such—Arrrghhhhh! I ended up adjusting the recipe anyway, adding some cornstarch and a more reasonable amount of butter. Success! 

I was going to post that recipe until I found a small box of instant pudding at another grocery store.  Arghhhhhhhh, again!! So I made the cake the third time, with my adjustments to the butter and the small box of pudding. It was no better than my pudding-less/cornstarch/more-butter version.

So! Here it is! My improved version of the Orange Marmalade Cake—no box of instant pudding required!

A note: the quality of the marmalade does affect the taste. By the third cake, I was out of the expensive stuff and used a cheapie store brand. When you make this cake—and please make this cake! It’s yummy—use the best quality marmalade you can get your hands on!

You’ll thank me for this recipe, but I guess you should thank Folgers, too—they inspired this marmalade cake journey, and this post 🙂

Orange Marmalade Cake

INGREDIENTS

For Cake

• 3 cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon orange extract
• 1/3 cup orange juice concentrate, at room temperature
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup of the good sweet orange marmalade

For Glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons orange juice concentrate, at room temperature
• 2 Tablespoons Sweet Orange Marmalade
• 3 teaspoon orange zest—usually from one orange
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350°, and prepare a 12-cup Bundt pan.
2. Mix dry ingredients together and set aside—flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt. 
3. Using an electric mixer, beat butter for one minute and then add in sugar and beat 3 or 4 minutes more, or until light and fluffy. 
4. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. After all eggs have been added, beat mixture for an additional minute.
5. Beat in orange and vanilla extracts and then the orange juice concentrate. 
6. Beat in 1/3 of flour mixture, then ½ of the buttermilk, then 1/3 of the flour mixture, ½ of the buttermilk, and then the last 1/3 of the flour mixture—do not over beat. 
7. Fold in marmalade, then pour batter into a prepared bundt pan.
8. Bake in preheated 350° oven for 45-50 minutes or until cake is done. 
9. Meanwhile, mix up glaze, and beat all ingredients together until well combined. 
10. When cake is done, remove from oven and cool in pan on a rack for 3-5 minutes, then remove cake to a rack and brush on 1/3 of glaze mixture, letting it soak into cake. 
11. After 10 minutes, brush on another 1/3 of glaze.  After 10 more minutes, brush on remaining glaze.  Let cake cool completely on rack before serving.  Serve at room temperature. I have had no problems keeping this cake under a glass dome on the kitchen counter for 3-4 days.

Mmmm… I think this is now one of my top five favorite cakes—what’s yours?