Mandarin Orange Cake
Mandarin orange cake is a surprising way to use this sweet fruit! This citrus fruit cake recipe uses the entire mandarin, peel and all, for a unique texture and delicious result.
This mandarin orange cake is the baby sister to my Sicilian whole orange cake that many of you are already familiar with.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you to Melissa’s Produce for supplying the mandarin oranges (I was not compensated for this post).
I’ve made so many different versions of this super popular orange cake, starting with a whole lemon cake, apple cake, peach cake and more. In fact, when I first published my Sicilian orange cake, it was the only whole orange cake on the internet in English.
It’s rough seeing how many others are online now, with zero credit to anyone, not even the original Italian blogger where my mother had found the original recipe. Since there’s nothing I can do, I choose not to focus on these things, but instead, I’m sharing another citrus version of this wonderful recipe with this mandarin orange cake which also uses the whole fruit (except the seeds.)
You can see its luscious texture and can imagine the sweet flavor! It’s really a showstopper of a cake when it comes to tasting it! It’s similar to this orange olive oil cake if you don’t like using butter.
Which Mandarin Oranges Should I Use?
When choosing your mandarin oranges, be sure to use organic because you’ll be ingesting the rind. You also don’t want a rind that is very hard or thick. It should be soft, fragrant, and full of moisture (dry fruit doesn’t work in this recipe.) Ojai pixie tangerines are very sweet, but sometimes their skin can be tough. Choose the right citrus, for the best results.
According to Robert Schueller from Melissa’s Produce, all tangerines are mandarin oranges. The difference is where the species of fruit originated.
“Mandarins and Tangerines are interchangeable words. Technically, mandarins are a tangerine from Asia and a tangerine is a mandarin from North Africa (Tangiers). However, over time the terms have been muddled for merchandising distinctions more than country of origin.” – Melissa’s Produce
I hope you enjoy this cake as much as I do!
Check out these recipes for blood orange ricotta cookies, and a blood orange margarita, too!
It’s perfect for potlucks, picnics, special occasions and even for an afternoon snack.
Mandarin Orange Cake
adapted by Christina Conte serves 12
FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE BELOW
Ingredients
- eggs
- sugar
- flour
- baking powder/Pane Degli Angeli powder
- butter
- Greek yogurt
- mandarin oranges
- vanilla (optional)
Glaze
- mandarin orange juice
- sugar
Special equipment: springform pan, or bundt pan or loaf tin
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
Make the Mandarin Cake Batter
Butter and flour an 8″ springform pan
Beat the sugar and eggs until thick and creamy.
Sift the flour with the baking powder or Paneangeli, then add to the mixture in the bowl a little at a time along with the softened butter.
Continue to mix until completely blended, then stir in the yogurt.
Blend the mandarin oranges in a food processor until finely chopped into a purée, then add to the batter. Mix well.
Pour into prepared tin and bake for 50-60 minutes until a cake tester or skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then run a thin knife around the perimeter and remove the side of the springform pan.
Glaze the cake if desired.
This is truly one of the easiest cakes you’ll ever make!
Just look at that crumb!
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Mandarin Orange Cake
Special Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 eggs free range, organic, if possible
- 1 ⅛ c sugar
- 1 ¾ c all purpose flour or plain flour in the UK
- 1 pkg Pane Degli Angeli vanilla baking powder or 2 ½ tsp baking powder
- ⅓ c butter salted, softened
- ⅓ c Greek yogurt (sour cream or labne also works)
- 4 mandarin oranges organic, sweet (3 or 4), washed, cut into pieces and seeds removed - weigh for best results
- 1 tsp vanilla extract ONLY USE IF USING BAKING POWDER
Glaze
- ¼ c mandarin orange juice from fresh mandarins
- ¼ c sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
- Butter and flour an 8″ springform pan
- Beat the sugar and eggs until thick and creamy.
- Sift the flour with the baking powder or Paneangeli, then add to the mixture in the bowl a little at a time along with the softened butter.
- Continue to mix until completely blended, then stir in the yogurt.
- Blend the mandarin oranges in a food processor until finely chopped into a purée, then add to the batter. Mix well.
- Pour into prepared tin and bake for 50-60 minutes until a cake tester or skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then run a thin knife around the perimeter and remove the side of the springform pan. Remove the bottom of the pan and place on a cooling rack.
Glaze
- Put the mandarin orange juice and sugar in a small pot and simmer for about 3 minutes until sugar is melted.
- Brush the glaze over the cake.
- Serve when cool on its own, or with some ice cream, custard or whipped cream.
Notes
- Using a scale will give the best results.
- It's difficult to say how many mandarin oranges are needed because they are never uniform in size and weight.
Nutrition
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This cake came out so moist and delicious. Absolutely perfect, even though I had no real way to measure ingredients.
Wow, that’s amazing, Nathalie! I usually recommend using a scale to bake, but this cake is truly remarkable in how it turns out well no matter the circumstances! Thank you for letting me know!
Wow- I’m so glad I stumbled upon this recipe, I’ve never made (or ate) a cake like this before. I used my scale for the weights (I ended up needing 5 little mandarins) and used a regular pan since I don’t have a springform. It came out absolutely perfect! I can’t wait to try out other recipes of yours, thank you!
I made this beautiful cake for a girl’s day with my family. Everyone loved it and took extra home with them! It’s so refreshing and moist. A kitchen scale (extra) would be great for recipes that are in grams!
Lovely to hear, thanks and good luck, Jen! Scales definitely are an asset (and so much easier to use than cups!)
My adult kiddo and I made this yesterday. I’ve been dying to try a Sicilian whole orange cake for a while and mandarin sounded lovely. As we were making the batter, I became concerned about how wet the cake would be. We had to use a larger 9″ or 10″ springform, since that’s what I have. Maybe that’s why it was so dense. There was no crumb to it at all. I also had to boil the juice and sugar to turn it into a glaze, it was too runny as the recipe called for it. The flavor was absolutely fabulous, though. The cake was so tasty, it still got eaten…just not sure what happened
Hi Heather, why were you concerned about how wet the cake would be while it was still in batter form? I don’t understand why you used the larger pan? The glaze is runny so that it soaks into the cake. Not sure what happened myself as it just sounds like you used a different pan and it was overbaked?
Yummy and easy recipe. I used less sugar, as I do with all recipes, forgetting this is a European recipe, so the sugar is just right. Plus a bit too much peel made for a bit of bitterness. But definitely a saver, will make this again for sure!
So glad you enjoyed it, Violeta! Try the original orange cake recipe if you get your hands on some fresh, sweet oranges!
It looks great but I haven’t tried it yet because I have very small mandarins and I don’t know how many small ones will equal the three or four regular size mandarins you specify. And you let us know how many mandarins to use by weight–i.e., how much to use by weight? And forgive the next question, but when I’ve made a Clementine cake, the whole fruit was boiled and the skins were included: presumably that is not the case here? Thank you. I’ll try it as soon as I read back from you!
Hi Terry, sorry for the delay as I was traveling and just returned. I’m not sure if you found the metric button above the ingredients so that you can indeed weigh your mandarins? And correct, there’s no boiling involved. Let me know how it turns out. CC
Hi I baked today but it was clog if you know what I mean. Not bad but why?
Thank you
Magdalena
Sorry, Magdalena, I don’t know what clog means. Please explain.
Hi Christina,
I just baked them and they were so delicious.
I used the metric measurement and baked in silicone cupcake moulds (yield in 8 cupcakes) for 25 minutes.
It came out perfect.
Thank you so much.
You made my day, thank you!
Yay, thank you!
With multiple mandarins to use before my next produce box arrived, I decided to try this recipe. I set it to metric measurements. After weighing out 300g peeled and deseeded segments, I blitzed them. When it came time to add the pulp, I followed my instincts. Thinking the mix would be too wet, I added an Australian 250ml cup worth. Spot on. The cake took 60 minutes to cook through, turning it at the 50 minute mark. I strained the last of the pulp to get the juice for the glaze (which was nice and jammy). A delicious cake, with a subtle flavour. It was lovely to have something different to orange, lime or lemon cakes.
Wonderful, Sheli! Happy to hear you enjoyed it! Try my muffin recipe next!
Hi,
We have heaps of mandarins off our tree at the moment which is great but the worst bit – all the pips! I am intrigued by this recipe and are going to make it but just want to check if the whole mandarin is blitzed or you segment it ad remove pips first?
Hi Kelly, this isn’t like my cakes, this only uses juice and zest, so no pips! :) Enjoy it, and let me know how it goes!