Blood Orange Bundt Cake
This Blood Orange Bundt Cake is moist, light, and packed with delicious bursts of vibrant blood orange flavor and soft hints of cardamom in every bite. Topped with a thick and smooth and punchy blood orange glaze, your brunch game just leveled up — big time.
Use any extra blood oranges to make my delicious Blood Orange Chia Pudding! Or use them in my delicious Orange Rolls!
Why This Recipe Works
- Beautiful bundt cake for brunch or dessert. This blood orange bundt cake is the perfect cake to serve to impress at dinner parties, brunches, Sunday dinners, Easter, dessert nights — basically all the things.
- Orange bundt cake with glaze. Not only does this orange cardamom cake have the perfect golden crumb, but the blood oranges make a pretty pink glaze. It’s the perfect cake to get you dreaming of springtime!
- Delicious flavor. Each bite of this blood orange cardamom cake will send your taste buds to a new level.
Ingredient Notes
- Flour: This blood orange bundt cake call for regular all-purpose flour.
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda: This recipe was made at sea level. King Arthur Baking has a great guide for suggested substitutions or changes for baking if you live at a high altitude.
- Cardamom: I use 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom in this recipe. It’s not overpowering, but I can taste it, especially towards the end of the bite. Feel free to bump the spice up to 3/4 teaspoon for a bigger punch.
- Cinnamon: Adding some cinnamon will help complement the cardamom spice and give a bit of balance to the flavor.
- Unsalted Butter: I use unsalted, but salted would be fine as well.
- Granulated Sugar: Sugar not only adds sweetness but also tenderness to the blood orange cake. The brown sugar in the blood orange cardamom bundt cake helps retain more moisture.
- Blood Orange Zest & Juice: I add 3 tablespoons of the zest, but you can add another tablespoon if you want a greater orange-y type flavor.
- Sour Cream: I use full fat sour cream. Sour cream is used in cakes to add moisture, fat for creaminess, and reacts with the baking soda to produce a light and fluffy cake.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Combine dry ingredients. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Add 3 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 2/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp cardamom, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp salt to a medium sized bowl. Whisk until combined.
- Cream wet ingredients. Add 1 cup butter, 1 cup granulated sugar, and 1/2 cup brown sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until light in color and fluffy in texture (about 2-3 minutes). Add in the 3 eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add 3 T blood orange zest, 1/4 cup blood orange juice and 1 tsp vanilla. Mix until well combined.
- Alternate flour mixture and sour cream. Alternate adding the flour and sour cream to the wet mixture, starting and finishing with the flour mixture. (Flour, sour cream, flour, sour cream, flour.) Mix until just barely combined. Don’t overman.
- Pour into prepared bundt pan and bake. To prepare your pan, grease and flour a 10-cup bundt pan. Pour batter into the pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes. The blood orange bundt cake is done when a toothpick in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
- Let cool while making the glaze. Add 1/3 cup blood orange juice, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, a pinch of cardamom, and 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar to a liquid measuring cup or small bowl. Stir until smooth. The consistency should be pourable, but thick.
- Glaze the cake! Pour the bright pink blood orange glaze over the cooled cardamom bundt cake. Slice and serve!
Recipe Tips
Once the cake is just warm to the touch, I like to cover the cake with plastic wrap. This little trick keeps the cake from drying out.
The consistency of the blood orange glaze should be pourable but thick. Add more powdered sugar or blood orange juice to reach your desired consistency.
One tip I have with bundt cakes is to start out with a simple design. The more intricate the design on the pan, the harder it is to get the cake out.
Be sure to really grease and flour the bundt cake pan very very well! Get every crevice! Then, let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.
Let the cake cool completely on the wire rack before pouring on the glaze on top of the cake.
Make Ahead, Storing, and Freezing
To store the cake, cover it with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out. Store at room temperature for up to 3 days. Cake is best served within the first 2 days.
You can freeze the cake if you’d like. Flash freeze until the glaze is set. Then double wrap the orange cardamom cake in plastic wrap. If freezing for longer than 1 week, I would then wrap in a layer of aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 3 months. Remove and let thaw in the fridge overnight.
It would be better to freeze the cake without the glaze! Then you can just make the glaze the day you are serving it and glaze it then.
To freeze slices, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze in an airtight container. Remove and let thaw in the fridge.
Recipe FAQs
Yes. Blood oranges are a bit bitter — similar to grapefruit. It’s also been described to have a slight cranberry taste as well.
Blood oranges are typically in season for the months of February and March.
Yes. While you can make a regular orange cardamom bundt cake, you won’t have the blood orange color or flavor — grapefruit or lemon would also be good substitutions. If you do use fresh oranges, navel oranges would be best.
I would opt for nutmeg if you don’t have cardamom! It will provide the most similar flavor — BUT not the same flavor, so keep that in mind!
More Delicious Bundt Cake Recipes
- Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
- Chocolate Buttermilk Bundt Cake
- Apple Cider Bundt Cake
- Gingerbread Bundt Cake
- Red Velvet Bundt Cake
- White Chocolate Raspberry Bundt Cake
Blood Orange Bundt Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter - softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar - packed
- 3 tablespoons blood orange zest
- 1/4 cup blood orange juice
- 3 large eggs - at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream - I always use full fat
Blood Orange Glaze
- 1/3 cup blood orange juice - might need more depending on your desired consistency
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch cardamom
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar - might need more depending on your desired consistency
Equipment
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Place the oven rack in the center position of the oven. Grease and flour a 10 cup bundt cake (see note #1). Set aside.
- In a medium size bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy about 2-3 minutes. Add in the eggs, one at a time. Beating well after each addition. Mix in the orange zest, vanilla, and orange juice until thoroughly combined.
- With the mixer on low, alternate adding the flour and sour cream, starting and ending with the flour. (Flour, sour cream, flour, sour cream, flour). Mix until JUST combined. Don’t overmix.
- Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes. Or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs on it. (Mine baked for 47 minutes).
- Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes in the bundt pan. Then, remove from the pan and cool until just warm to the touch. See note #2.
- Glaze with the blood orange glaze.
Blood Orange Glaze
- Whisk all of the ingredients together until smooth. The consistency should be pourable but thick. Add more powdered sugar, or more blood orange juice to make it the right consistency.
Notes
- I ALWAYS grease and flour, THEN spray with Baker’s cooking spray. (It’s a particular spray that has flour in it. You can find it at any grocery store).
- Once it’s cool, but still slightly warm, I like to cover it with plastic wrap to keep the cake from drying out.
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8 Comments on “Blood Orange Bundt Cake”
I’ve never made a cake with blood orange or with cardamom, so I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. It was so worth it! Holy smokes. So yummy. Love the flavor pairing. It’s so unique and so crazy yummy. I will definitely make this again.
would this recipe work with mini bundt pans? thanks!
Yes it would, but I don’t know what the bake time would be.
Made this cake over the weekend, it was absolutely fabulous! Replaced the sour cream with greek yogurt and it turned out perfectly. Will be making again!
This cake is literal heaven!!! It is such a showstopper, as well as being delicious. I make it non dairy using vegan butter, and sour cream and it still tastes dairy! A real go to recipe whenever blood oranges are in season, and you want to show off 🙂.
Fantastic recipe. I made one alteration because I was worried it could get a little dry: I did 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup vegetable oil. Everything else I followed to a T. Flavor is great and crumb is perfect. Would definitely make again.
How do you feel about using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream? I’m not thrilled about my local sour cream options.
You can use Greek yogurt instead of sour cream! (I think I talk about this in the body of the blog post, if not, I’ll go back and add it).