The recipe that sparked my love of food processor cake recipes!
Aptly named Orange Poppy lazy Loaf because admittedly I was lazy and wanted to see what would happen if I threw everything into the food processor!
The result: Perfection!
The whole orange with the skins and all go into the food processor!
Resulting in a super moist orange overload cake that is fluffy and spongy and so delicious!
It only took 5 minutes to measure out and whiz up all the ingredients and then the bake time was around 40 minutes.
Drizzle with fresh orange sugar glaze and have yourself the easiest, tastiest snack loaf ever!
Or turn it into a layer cake like I did here for my Orange Cardamom Cake
Candied oranges from the holiday season make another fabulous appearance!
But of course you can leave that part out!
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Notes for Success:
If you do not have a 14 cup food processor a blender to whiz up the oranges will work just fine
Then just mix all the ingredients by hand with a whisk in a large mixing bowl
Small oranges like clementines work the best for this recipe since the skin is very thin.
If using another orange that has a thicker skin I would recommend to cut away a portion of that white pith from the inside
Which is what gives oranges their bitter taste
2 small clementines or 1 small navel total volume measure of pureed orange with the skin on is a scant 1/2 cup (5oz)
I am using Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer for this recipe
But I have also forgotten to use the egg replacer altogether once and it still came out great!
Read the note below the recipe for information about using flax as an egg replacer
This batter bakes perfectly into cake layers and cupcakes too! The recipe listed below will make 12 cupcakes or 3-6″ cake layers
CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO TUTORIAL FOR HOW TO MAKE THIS CAKE!
Orange Poppy Lazy Loaf
Ingredients
- Plant Milk ¾ cup 177ml
- 2 small clementines= total weight of orange with skin on is 5oz
- All Purpose Flour 1¾ cup 220g
- Egg Replacer 1½ teaspoons *I am using Bob's Red Mill See notes below this recipe
- Granulated Sugar 14 Tablespoons 195g
- Baking Powder 3 teaspoons
- Salt ¾ teaspoon
- Vegan Butter or Vegetable Oil 9 Tablespoons 126g
- Poppy Seeds 2 teaspoons *optional
- Vanilla Extract 2 teaspoons 10ml
For the Sugar Glaze:
- Confectioner's Sugar 1 cup 120g
- Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice 1 Tablespoon 15ml
- Zest of 1 orange approx 1½ teaspoons
- Poppy Seeds for garnish optional
- Candied Orange for Garnish Optional
Instructions
- First pull of the hard stem of the orange is there are any and check the oranges for seeds by slicing them in half and remove seeds if there are any. The skins stay on the orange, so leave that intact.
- Place all of the ingredients except for the poppy seeds into a food processor and processor until smooth batter (about 1 minute)
- The orange goes in whole, skin and all! The skin is where the oil essence is and that gives the cake a beautiful orange flavor and fragrance unmatched by just the juice or any extract. Just be sure to cut them open first to see if there are any seeds, in which case remove the seeds first.
- Fold in poppy seeds and pour batter into a greased loaf pan
- Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for approximately 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan until you are able to touch it with your hands without burning them, then flip the loaf out onto a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.
- Combine the confectioners sugar with the orange juice and zest and whisk smooth, pour over the loaf cake.
Video
Notes
Freeze for 1 month
Someone commented that when she made this recipe it resulted in a heavy, gummy cake that tasted great but was not great in texture.
Hi Gretchen, I used a flax egg as I didn’t had any store bought egg replacer but it turned so dense, even when cooling down it collapsed
ITS SO DELICIOUS THO but i wish it was more cake like and less bread pudding.
I wrote:
Hey there, you mentioned using Flax as the egg replacer as opposed to the dry blend egg replacer I used.
First things first, flax is a high fat ingredient. I am not sure how you reconstituted it? If you even did?
But I wonder if you added more water/liquid to the recipe to do so? (Yes she stated that she did)
These two changes would cause a heavier result due to the fat in the flax and the added water/liquid to the recipe.
I would say that was what caused the tilt to “too much moisture” this is already a really moist cake when made exactly as I have it written
To add even just a simple 3 Tbs of water and the higher fat (fat=moisture) in the flax versus a drying & tightening property of a proprietary blend egg replacer this is most
likely what caused this result
Next time if you use flax I would suggest to take out about 1 Tbs of the oil in the recipe and reconstitute the flax with some of the liquid
that is already listed in the recipe – DO NOT ADD MORE.
It’s just really important to understand the ingredients in your recipe since vegan baking can be slightly less forgiving than our past life experience with non vegan baking.
Also, I totally understand the need to change ingredients that you may not have on hand or want to buy, but now knowing what I explained about the high fat content in flax not to
mention the need to reconstitute it with added water- you can then start to understand why and how I make those suggestions with adjusting the other ingredients as well. It keeps it all in balance
Hi Gretchen, I just came from Patreon after getting the email about this recipe and can’t wait to try it. Just a few Qs for you, 1) Would you mind telling us the weight of the orange pulp or whole orange needed for the recipe? I have never seen a small-sized Navel orange where I live and I don’t know where to get clementines either, worried there will be too much or too little liquid if I don’t match yours by weight.. 2) There is no instruction to peel the oranges, do we put them in whole with the peel? and if so, should we boil the orange first so the peel isn’t bitter? 3) for egg replacer, I have only Ener-G or flax egg, how do we sub this in for the Plant Based Egg? just as these different egg replacers require different amount of water added to them. sorry for all the Qs I’m a bit of a perfectionist lol. love your recipes xx
Hi Emma, all great questions! Thanks (I will update the post) but to answer 1) Yes I will weigh it (but I don’t have any oranges left, so next time I go shopping- I will weigh it)
The clementines are about the size of a golf ball, so I used 2 as that was about equal to the size of a small navel orange.
2) no peeling, just check to make sure there are no pits, in which case you would remove them, but otherwise WHOLE into the food processor with the skin (the skin is where all the oil is and that is where the amazing fragrance and flavor comes from for the orange. NO to BOILING as that will take out all that luscious oil
3) I recommend the Plant Based Egg as it is the best and I use it for 99% of all my baking recipes now. If you don’t want to buy it, you can try another egg replacer- but the EnerG has leavening in it and is mainly potato starch, so I am not sure how it will work as I don’t use that one very often anymore now that the PBE has gone to market.
If you DO try the EnerG reconstitute it with the water as listed on the package for 1 egg, but take out that amount of liquid (the plant milk) from my recipe.
Thanks for your reply Gretchen 🙂 have taken note of all of this and please do shoot me a comment reply whenever you have the chance to weigh your oranges, I’ll keep an eye out. Also if I can’t get the plant based egg, what is the next best substitute you would recommend? can’t wait to make this xxx
Will do! going to today to grab a few to weigh!
I would say another egg replacer that is a dry blend- proprietary blend like Bob’s Red Mill would be similar
Hi Emma! Updated reply: 1 small navel orange or 2 clementines = total weight of the orange with skin on is 5oz (that’s approximately 2 small clementines or 1 small navel) total volume measure of a pureed orange with the skin on is a scant 1/2 cup
Thanks Gretchen! I was talking with my family today all about this and can’t wait to make it for them. I do have another question, how much almond extract would you recommend I add to give this an orange and almond flavour? And how about using a portion almond meal (almond flour)? I love the combination of orange and almond and was thinking of adding just the extract or flour as well if you think possible – then some flaked almonds on top!
Yumm! Love almond extract, I find it very strong though so I would say just about 1/2 – 3/4 tsp?
I am not sure about the almond flour though, as this is already a very moist cake, almond flour is alot of fat and that = more moisture (not a bad thing normally, but here will be too much – in my guess, without some tweaking) I would recommend to try the recipe as is it here first, so you can see what you are working with, then make some educated adjustments from there.
(For example, if you DO use the almond flour, I would probably have to cut back on a small amount of fat and perhaps some of the liquid to ensure you don’t have a very “raw” looking cake after baking, these are just my first guesses)
This is brilliant… BV (before vegan) I had a similar recipe that used a whole orange, but also used 5 eggs so didn’t know how to veganise it. Thought I’d never have that cake again, and then you publish this beauty. Thank you!!!
It’s a very forgiving recipe too – somehow I missed adding in the plant milk (too excited about that whole orange) and it still turned out terrific.
A tip for those not using the Plant Based Egg: mix 1 tbs of black chia seeds, with 3 tbs of water, but don’t fold it in until you fold in the poppy seeds. Just looks like more poppy seeds (I love poppy seeds, so I actually upped the 2 tsps to 3 tbs ?).
Great recipe! Thanks again
So I recently tried this recipe and it was quite good, although the inside of the cake was a little bland, which is why I think I’ll use oranges next time as they’re more flavourful than clementines, and maybe a touch more sugar. Also, the texture was a tad too dense and almost gummy, which I thought might be due to the fact that the flour is blended in the food processor. Is it possible to over process the gluten? I blended it only as much as required in order to properly blend the clementines. Perhaps it would be best to blend the fruit separately, then fold in the dry ingredients.
Hello! I was wondering if I could use bobs red mill GF all purpose flour plus psyllium husk powder instead of a cake flour.
Hi, while I am not a GF baker and have not tried that substitution here in this recipe, I suspect it would work. But I really can’t be sure. I would say to do a small (half recipe) test first to see
Could lemons be used instead of oranges? Just curious.
Lemons have a different ratio of sugar compared to oranges, not to mention the skins would be slightly more bitter. So while yes this recipe can be converted to Lemon it would need some tweaking to the other ingredients to make it work out.
Not long ago I posted to Facebook with this same question/conundrum re Lemon Vs Lime and here was my post:
For my Lemon Cake Versus my Lime Cake It is not a straight 1:1 sub, strangely you would think lemon & lime are almost identical, but Limes have slightly more sugar content than lemons.
“Lemons are richer in proteins, but limes contain more carbohydrates & limes are higher in total sugars.”
ALSO, since lemons are more acidic than limes, the baking POWDER used in the lemon recipe is sufficient to raise the cake, while the baking soda (which is typically 4 times stronger in raising ability) is good for the key lime juice recipe.
However, since lemons are more acidic you would need more sugar in a lemon recipe to balance it, So by using lime juice in the lemon recipe the sugar content goes way up in comparison making the cake sticky as well”
So once again it’s the science of our bakes that we need to understand to make these recipe work out! I know this doesn’t help too much since I don’t have the lemon recipe for this one!
However here is a Lemon Pound Cake Recipe in the meantime!
I have made this a few times now and it’s probably one of the best loaf cakes I have ever had. Thank you so much!
Love this cake. I made it today for the first time. Husband loves it too and will definitely make again soon. Thank you for sharing your recipe.