Blood Orange Buttermilk Pound Cake
Time to make our blood orange buttermilk pound cake! It’s always around this time of year that we begin swimming in citrus. Every meal (and drink!) has some splash of fragrant juice. You can call it a garden obsession, but we’re not far from being finished.
Blood Orange Pound Cake Recipe
Last week we planted another (our third) blood orange tree and it wasn’t in-celebration to grow more, but rather, to replace one blood orange tree that had completely died on us. So this blog post has mixed emotions, both sadness for losing a beloved tree and joy of giving another tree life in our garden. We’re ready to move on and celebrate blood oranges.
Call it over-zealous gardening or perhaps too much attention to care which resulted in overwatering. After ten years, our beloved first blood orange tree completely died. We were in shock and speechless when it started to deteriorate after only 4 weeks of peaking out with hundreds of blood oranges. With still about one hundred pounds of blood oranges to pick, the tree quickly started to yellow and lose it’s leaves.
Finding the Answers to Our Dying Tree
After many phone calls to nurseries, conversations with Master gardeners and hours researching online we found the answer. The conclusion was that our tree was being over watered. We killed our own tree? Did we really hurt it? After a phase of feeling guilt for nurturing the tree too much, we realized we shouldn’t be punishing ourselves for loving something too much. In fact, we saw it as a learning experience on how to care for older established trees and not baby-ing it like a toddler-tree.
We said good-bye to our first blood orange tree for all the years of beautiful juice, zest, cocktails and love. We celebrated its contribution to our garden with this blood orange buttermilk pound cake. It’s delicious and beautiful, just like the tree that we loved so much.
We’re grateful for all the wonderful blood oranges that have graced our kitchen. Hope you’ll enjoy this Seasons bounty of blood oranges too.
-diane and todd
Here’s some of our previous blood orange recipes you might enjoy:
Blood Orange Bars with Brown Butter Crust Recipe
Blood Orange Margarita Recipe
Blood Orange Ricotta Cookies Recipe
Blood Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins Recipe
Click Here for—> More Blood Orange Recipes
Visit complete list of–> Cocktail Recipes here.
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and re-published in 2019 with updated recipe notes.
Blood Orange Buttermilk Poundcake
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups (220g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons (10ml) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
- 1/2 cup (113g or one stick) butter , at room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- finely grated zest of 2 blood oranges
- 1/4 cup (60ml) fresh blood orange juice
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup (120ml) buttermilk *see note below
For the sauce:
- 1-2 Tablespoons (15 -30ml) fresh blood orange juice (depending on how thick you like your sauce)
- 1/2 cup (60g) confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan.
- Whisk or sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt for about 20 seconds or until well combined. Set aside.
- Beat together the butter, sugar, blood orange zest and blood orange juice until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes in a stand mixer). Scrape the sides of the bowl and beat in the vanilla extract and egg.
- Add the buttermilk and the dry flour mixture to the butter/egg batter. Carefully stir the batter until combined, but don’t overmix (it will be a thick batter), making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 45 minutes - 1 hour, or until golden and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center.
- When cool enough to handle, gently remove the pound cake from the pan.
- Make the sauce: Whisk together the blood orange juice and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Spoon the sauce over the pound cake or serve alongside to dunk in.
I just made this cake, and it was delicious! Not too sweet, so moist, and full of the delicious flavor or the blood oranges. I loved it and will definitely make it again… soon!
Gorgeous cake, the blood orange sauce is stunning!
Are blood oranges in season? They have been a hit lately if they are.
I love the idea of a buttermilk pound cake. To me, I find a difference between a regular cake and a pound cake and I think the pound cake is just much better.
This pound cake is absolutely gorgeous! That blood orange icing on top is beautiful and looks so delicious! I hope your new blood orange tree thrives!
So sorry for the loss of your blood orange tree! You two always have the best blood orange recipes 🙂 Glad there’s a new member of the garden family to take its place.
So sorry to hear about your blood orange tree! I have one also – a small one – so I am thrilled to get your recipes. I think I may be killing my Mexican lime tree – I’m not sure how.
Gorgeous cake!
I’m so sorry about your blood orange tree. It is very sad to lose a tree that gave so much joy. We are going on year two with our blood orange tree without fruit. Hopefully this year there will be some gems to enjoy next winter. Beautiful BO pound cake and all your other posts using blood oranges. Look forward to trying some of them with our own citrus treats! 🙂
We lost our blood orange tree as well. I think they are trickier to grow than many citrus trees…
10 years is a long time. I’m so sorry about your tree, I know how much you love and nurture that beautiful garden of yours and this must be tough! As I read your tribute to the blood orange tree, I can’t help but think that it could be a metaphor for some facet of life but I can’t put my finger on it yet. Lots of love to you both!
This pound cake is beautiful!
This cake is absolutely stunning. I can’t even imagine the possibilities if I had a blood orange tree in my backyard. It took me about 2 weeks and 5 different stores to find those beauties in NY last month. And when I did, I think I spent about $30 in oranges. 🙂
Wow the colours are warming my heart and I am in Australia right now. The photos are stunning and bright; and on that cake? serious stuff!
The colour of the top of this cake is so freaking gorgeous. LOVE it!
What a beautiful cake. Yes we have issues like that in our garden. Loving the plants to much.
You two and your blood orange recipes make me drool every time! This is your best yet! So, so stunning! pinned
I’m sorry for your gardening loss! Hopefully your new one will thrive so you can keep producing lovely blood orange recipes. 🙂