We just had our citrus season in Florida. I just love the taste and smell of citrus. It's tangy, sweet and refreshing. When you peel an orange and are met with a light spray of fragrant mist, you know how much flavor and aroma it will impart.
These lovely little cakes are one of the best ways to feature citrus. I adjusted a recipe of America's Test Kitchen lemon bundt cake and made these incredible mini orange bundt cakes. The light textured cake is so tender with tiny crumb throughout and feels almost feathery. The orange zest perfumes the cake from the inside and in the glaze on the outside.
Yields: 12 mini bundt cakes or 1 large bundt cake
Ingredients:
18 Tablespoons butter, softened
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 - 1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup buttermilk
4 Tablespoons orange juice, 1 ½ Tablespoons orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
Glaze:
2 cups confectioner's sugar
2-3 Tablespoons orange juice, plus ½ Tablespoon orange zest
1 Tablespoon buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
I start this recipe by taking the butter out of the refrigerator and cutting it into Tablespoonful chunks. Set aside. While you are preparing the rest of the ingredients, the butter will come to the perfect temperature. If you have room temperature butter, you don't need to do this.
Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Set aside. 
Zest two oranges. 
You should take off all of the outer layer of the peel, but not get to the white part, which is bitter. 
Juice the orange. Set aside 1 ½ Tablespoons of the zest for the batter and ½ Tablespoon for the glaze. Set aside 4 Tablespoons of juice for the batter and 2-3 Tablespoons of juice for the glaze.
Combine the buttermilk, 4 Tablespoons orange juice, 1 ½ Tablespoons zest and vanilla in a measuring cup. Or a bowl, it's just much easier to measure and then pour from the same container:). 
Mix the eggs and yolk in another small bowl just until combined. 
Cream the butter and sugar on medium speed for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy. 
The original recipe calls for 2 cups of sugar. For my taste, 1 cup of sugar was more than enough. The cake is not very sweet but with the glaze, it has plenty of sweetness. However, if you don't use the glaze, or just dust with powdered sugar, use 1 ½ cups of sugar.
Pour in half of the eggs and mix for about 15 seconds, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Repeat with the rest of the eggs. It will look curdled. Don't worry, when you add the flour it will be fine. 
Add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the batter. Mix just until combined, about 15 seconds. Pour in half of the buttermilk mixture. 
Mix again. Add half of the remaining flour. Mix. Add the rest of the buttermilk mixture, followed by the rest of the flour mixture. 
This is a crucial step. Adding part of the flour to the batter followed by half of the buttermilk mixture, and so on, creates a light even texture for the cake. The texture will be ruined if you don't do this. The cake will be dense. It is very important not to over mix. With each addition, mix until just barely incorporated. In the end, finish mixing with a rubber spatula.
Spray the bundt cake mold with baking spray or grease with butter and then coat with flour, tapping out excess. Fill the mold ⅔ full with batter. 
Bake 20-25 minutes. Invert the baked bundt cakes onto a cooling rack. 
Meanwhile, make the glaze by whisking all the ingredients together. 
Apply glaze while the bundt cakes are still warm, either with a pastry brush or pouring it on, letting excess drip off on the rack. 
If you have only one pan with 6 mini bundt cakes, refrigerate the dough while waiting for the first batch to bake. Of course, you can bake this as one large bundt cake.
Mini Orange Bundt Cakes
- Prep Time: 18 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 43 mins
- Yield: 6 mini bundt cakes, 1 large bundt cake
- Category: Sweets
Ingredients
Cake
- 18 Tablespoons butter, softened
- 3 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 - 1 ½ cups sugar
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- 4 Tablespoons orange juice, 1 ½ Tablespoons orange zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
Glaze:
- 2 cups confectioner's sugar
- 2-3 Tablespoons orange juice, plus ½ Tablespoon orange zest
- 1 Tablespoon buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Set aside.
- Zest two oranges. You should take off all of the outer layer of the peel, but not get to the white part, which is bitter.
- Juice the orange. Set aside 1 ½ Tablespoons of the zest for the batter and ½ Tablespoon for the glaze.
- Set aside 4 Tablespoons of juice for the batter and 2-3 Tablespoons of juice for the glaze.
- Combine the buttermilk, 4 Tablespoons orange juice, 1 ½ Tablespoons zest and vanilla in a measuring cup.
- Mix the eggs and yolk in another small bowl just until combined.
- Cream the butter and sugar on medium speed for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Pour in half of the eggs and mix for about 15 seconds, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Repeat with the rest of the eggs. It will look curdled. Don't worry, when you add the flour it will be fine.
- Add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the batter. Mix just until combined, about 15 seconds.
- Pour in half of the buttermilk mixture. Mix again.
- Add half of the remaining flour. Mix.
- Add the rest of the buttermilk mixture, followed by the rest of the flour mixture.
- It is very important not to over mix. With each addition, mix until just barely incorporated. In the end, finish mixing with a rubber spatula.
- Spray the bundt cake mold with baking spray or grease with butter and then coat with flour, tapping out excess.
- Fill the mold ⅔ full with batter.
- Bake 20-25 minutes.
- Invert the baked bundt cakes onto a cooling rack.
- Meanwhile, make the glaze by whisking all the ingredients together.
- Apply glaze while the bundt cakes are still warm, either with a pastry brush or pouring it on, letting excess drip off on the rack.
- If you have only one pan with 6 mini bundt cakes, refrigerate the dough while waiting for the first batch to bake. Of course, you can bake this as one large bundt cake.
These look absolutely beautiful and have a delicious orange flavor but came out less moist than I would have preferred. I cooked the first batch for 22 minutes and the second one for 20, and that two minute difference made the second batch come out a lot better -- though still not as moist as it could be. The cake itself is really light and fluffy, but it lacks that soft center that other bundt cakes I've tried have. Next time, I might try poking holes at the bottom and adding some kind of orange-y buttermilk sauce inside the cakes, kind of like a kentucky butter cake, to maybe resolve that issue! Will definitely try this recipe again but will probably have to experiment around with some modifications to find the perfect fit!
In the meantime, I'm still pretty happy with how the bake came out, and these are a great complement to tea or coffee.
Thanks for sharing, Katie. Another thing that may help with softness is not to overmix the batter and also to use room temperature dairy.
Can I used somting other buttermilk
You can use milk + sour cream instead of the buttermilk.
I am made these the other day and while delicious the puffed up to almost muffin shape. Any ideas on why?
You probably needed to add less batter to each of the muffin cups, Amanda.
Hello,
I made these mini bundt and they look exactly like yours! The real test was the taste and it was so light,fluffy and a delicious orange flavour.
I used almost cup and a half of sugar but next time will use only 1 cup as you did give us a choice of 1 or 1 1/2 cups.
The glaze was perfect as well.
THIS IS NOW MY GO TO ORANGE RECIPE! Thank you for a taste of summer as it’s freezing here in Canada.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a wonderful review, Mary. I am so happy that you enjoyed the bundt cakes. We love them in our family too.
Why did you modify the original recipe? It appears the original uses orange juice not buttermilk. Also you increase the flour by 1/2 cup. Was there a taste difference or an issue with the size of the cookinng vessel.
I'm not sure what you mean, Barry. I didn't modify this recipe since I posted it in 2012. I modified it from a Lemon Bundt Cake recipe from America's Test Kitchen, so I used orange juice and zest instead of lemon juice and used less sugar because I always decrease the amount of sweetness. Other than that, I didn't decrease flour and do use some orange juice in the cake and the glaze.
I just made this and the flavor is great. The texture is more biscuit like. Not like a cake. I don't know what I may have did wrong....
I have no idea what could have gone wrong, Lola. The texture is supposed to be very tender and soft, not biscuit like.
I just took it from the oven, it is so good, I am definitely going to make it more often, I usually don't eat sweet but this one I like, thank you so much for posting
That's great, Veronika! I actually made this on Saturday too.
Man, this is just the best. Looks way too delicious I can't wait to bake them. I can only imagine them with milk!!
Hi Olga!
I'm so excited to try these out! One problem I have tho, is that I do not have the small bundt forms...how many times do you think I should double this recipe to make one big bundt cake?
Ok never mind! I just read the above post and got the answer to my question! Sorry about that 🙂 Next time I will be sure to read the info thoroughly 🙂
Hi Olga! What other form could I use besides the little bundt form? I do not have one so therefore I am curious to what you could recommend? Thanks!
Hi Oksana,
I'm not sure if you noticed, but I did mention in the post that you can bake this as one bundt cake, in a regular sized bundt pan. You can also bake them in a muffin cups, since I've never made it this way, I don't know the timing for the baking, but you can check with a toothpick for doneness.
I started making these yesterday and realized I only have one orange, so I thought I could do one orange and one lemon. It turned out great! And that one cup of sugar was plenty, you really don't need anymore.
Great thinking! I made lemon poppy seed cakes once from this same batter and we loved it.
wow these look delicious, can't wait until I try them!