Fresh Orange Birthday Cake from
The Cake Mix Doctor Returns!

I’m a long-time fan of The Cake Mix Doctor–it was with Anne Byrn’s recipes that I first experimented with making icing from scratch (believe me, once you try it, you will never buy canned icing again). As soon as The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! landed on my desk, I was already picking out which cake I was going to make first.

I went with the Fresh Orange Birthday Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting. The freshly squeezed orange in the cake and zest in the icing had my kitchen smelling incredible before I even got the pans in the oven. The result was a decadent icing paired with a light and refreshing cake so good that we ended up eating a generous slice for Sunday brunch! One of my favorite things about the Cake Mix Doctor books is how easy it is to mix and match the cakes with different icings, and I’d love to try this one with a chocolate frosting or glaze with some orange zest sprinkled in, but I’ve got 159 cakes to get through before trying repeats!

Fresh Orange Birthday Cake

Vegetable oil spray, for misting the pans
Flour, for dusting the pans
1 large orange
About 1 cup orange juice from a carton
1 package (18.25 ounces) plain yellow cake mix
1 package (3.4 ounces) vanilla instant pudding mix
½ cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
Orange Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe below)
12 to 15 fresh orange slices, or candy gum drop
orange slices, for garnish

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