Mary Berry’s Orange layer cake

Mary Berry’s Orange layer cake

The queen of baking, Mary Berry, creates a light and fruity citrus sponge with buttery frosting and a sugar glaze

Difficulty and servings

Easy

Cuts into 8 slices

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 15 mins

Cook time

Cook 20 mins

Freezable

Method

  1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. You will need 2 x 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich tins, greased and bases lined with baking parchment. Measure all the cake ingredients into a large bowl (reserve a little orange zest for decoration) and beat with a wooden spoon or electric hand mixer until combined and smooth.
  2. Divide evenly between the 2 tins. Bake for 20-25 mins or until well risen, lightly golden and shrinking away from the sides of the tins. After 5 mins, remove from the tins and leave to cool on a wire rack.
  3. To make the icing, put the butter and icing sugar into a bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy. Stir in the orange zest.
  4. Remove the paper from the cakes. Sit 1 cake upside down on a plate. Make the glaze by putting the caster sugar and orange juice into a saucepan, stirring over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Boil until reduced by half, then brush half on the upside-down cake, using a pastry brush. Spread half the butter icing over the glazed cake. Sit the other cake on top, brush with the remaining glaze, then spread with the remaining butter icing. Scatter with the reserved orange zest. The cake is best eaten on the day, but will keep for up to 3 days in a cool place. It freezes well un-iced or filled.
Try

Mary Berry and Lucy Young At Home

This recipe was taken from Mary Berry and Lucy Young At Home , a collection of Mary's favourite family recipes. Text (c) Mary Berry 2013, image (c) Woodlands books 2013

USE THE RIGHT SUGAR FOR CREAMING

It's important to use caster sugar when following a creamed cake method. It is really finely ground, meaning it creams well with the butter to give you a light sponge. At BBC Good Food, we like to use golden caster sugar as it is unrefined, unlike white caster sugar, which is heavily processed.

PER SLICE

745 kcalories, protein 6g, carbohydrate 86g, fat 42 g, saturated fat 15g, fibre 1g, sugar 67g, salt 1.3 g

Recipe from Good Food magazine, April 2013.

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Latest comments and suggestions

Results 1-20

  • Binder photo Alison

    06 March 2013

    Alison commented on this recipe

    225g baking spread? Er, plain flour?

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  • Binder photo sallymount

    06 March 2013

    sallymount commented on this recipe

    baking spread I assume is Stork soft margarine or supermart's own brand equivalent? The baking powder is prob in with the sr flour because it is an all-in-one mix??

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  • Binder photo Bowdenei

    06 March 2013

    Bowdenei commented on this recipe

    Think I would use soft butter for the best taste. Would like to try it so will report back when I do. I wouldn't dream of using margarine personally.

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  • Binder photo Cazzaminx

    06 March 2013

    Cazzaminx rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Used butter, and made as one square cake. Absolutely stunningly delicious. Didn't last long.

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  • Binder photo Squiz

    06 March 2013

    Squiz commented on this recipe

    what on earth is baking spread ?

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  • Binder photo Sammy

    06 March 2013

    Sammy rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Well, I don't have to make any comments - they have all been made above. I too, would use soft spread butter. Never heard of baking spread. New fangled terms? Recently, in an American recipe "sticks" of butter were used. What is that?

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  • Binder photo Ray

    06 March 2013

    Ray commented on this recipe

    Baking spread is a margarine-type product costing less than half the price of butter. You can find it in Sainsbury's or Aldi for sure, and many other supermarkets if you look. Mary Berry always suggests this in her recipes rather than butter because, she says, the resulting cake is lighter. I have tried both and the taste is fine with baking spread - I use Aldi's own brand at around 47p for 250g.

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  • Binder photo Claire1968

    07 March 2013

    Claire1968 commented on this recipe

    Sammy - I live in America and sticks are 4 oz butter sticks. They come in packs of 4 sticks, so if you need half a stick it would be 2 oz.

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  • Binder photo jude

    07 March 2013

    jude commented on this recipe

    Baking spread is spreadable butter, such as lurpak spreadable. It has the highest butter content, and then blended with oil. It does make cakes lighter, but still gives the taste you would get using butter. Using a margarine spread will not give the same taste, but the cake would still be light. Hope this helps

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  • Binder photo KAZZLES

    07 March 2013

    KAZZLES rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Best thing of all to use as 'baking spread' is I Can't Believe it�s not Butter - it makes the lightest of sponges and has a better taste. Cake was nice but I always prefer my 2nd bake of a recipe where I do a little tweaking - my best tip is cut down on a little sugar and add a sprinkle of Cinnamon

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  • Binder photo Johnbermuda

    09 March 2013

    Johnbermuda commented on this recipe

    I followed the instructions and produced 2 lovely pancakes

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  • Binder photo Jen

    09 March 2013

    Jen rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Light, moist, delicately flavoured, delicious. I used Stork and the taste is absolutely fine.

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  • Binder photo vixts

    10 March 2013

    vixts commented on this recipe

    I made this cake with stork. It was light and delicious.

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  • Binder photo Feefee55

    10 March 2013

    Feefee55 rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Used lurpak spreadable as it was out the fridge & soft. Easy to make, made it for Mothers Day, went down a treat, would make again.

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  • Binder photo emma

    14 March 2013

    emma rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I didnt have any oranges so used Satsumas! Still tasted great not that orangey but probably due to the very sweet satsumas, I also used Stork and the sponge was lovely and moist I didn't bother with the zest in the icing I added a little of the juice instead I also missed off the grated rind on top. Family declared it a big hit and I'm going to try it with lemons next, hopefully that should work too :-)

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  • Binder photo Multitasker

    14 March 2013

    Multitasker commented on this recipe

    Made this last night, found it really easy and the family loved it.

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  • Binder photo Tamsyn

    15 March 2013

    Tamsyn rated and commented on this recipe

    3 stars

    This cake was weird! It was amazingly light and had a lovely texture but I found it too bitter and too sweet at the same time. Very marmalady!

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  • Binder photo acurrymancalledr

    16 March 2013

    acurrymancalledr rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    FROSTING TOO SWEET, BUT.... Yeah, looks like the baking spread term caused a lot of confusion lol This was nice, but for people who don't like it too sweet, like me, should add mascarpone or Philadelphia cheese in with the frosting mix, it was essential in this case!

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  • Binder photo littletwig

    27 March 2013

    littletwig rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Made this for a family "get-together". Everyone enjoyed it. Didn't change any of the ingredients. Will be on my list of best cakes.

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  • Binder photo sweetpea

    03 April 2013

    sweetpea rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I used softened butter and it turned out just fine and dandy.

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Difficulty and servings

Easy

Cuts into 8 slices

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 15 mins

Cook time

Cook 20 mins

Freezable

Ingredients

FOR THE CAKE

  • 225g baking spread
  • 225g self-raising flour
  • 1 level tsp baking powder
  • 100g golden caster sugar
  • 100g brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • finely grated zest of 2 oranges

FOR THE BUTTER ICING

  • 150g butter , softened
  • 300g icing sugar , sifted
  • finely grated zest of 2 oranges

FOR THE GLAZE

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PER SLICE

745 kcalories, protein 6g, carbohydrate 86g, fat 42 g, saturated fat 15g, fibre 1g, sugar 67g, salt 1.3 g

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