Orange Soda Cake

Earlier this week, I spent a couple of days in Boston.  It was a work trip, and I didn't get a chance to do any sight seeing.  

Luckily, I have been before so I am not too upset about not seeing anything touristy.  There are a few things I would still like to see there.  I have heard they have a fun science museum.  I went to the art museum, but I could go back and spend at least another day there.

I would also like to see a game at Fenway park.  I took a tour of the stadium, but didn't see a game.  Luckily, my co-worker and I got to eat some tasty food.

Even though we were only there for two days, we went to Mike's Pastry shop twice.  Of course, only I bought desserts on both trips.  I ate a two different types of brownies, and they were both delicious.  I know the story is famous  for their cannoli, but I'm a brownies girl.

We also ate some fantastic lobster mac and cheese.  We ate some subpar lobster rolls too.  We were hungry and went to a close restaurant without doing our due diligence. 

We went to Boston for a data visualization conference.  It was a good experience.  I came away inspired, but also cognizant of my programing shortcomings.  I have a long way to go to become a competent data scientist.

It was a much younger and hipper crowed than I usually associate with in my work.  

Now I am going to talk about this cake.  I don't think I would have normally though to make a cake with orange soda, but I had some orange soda on hand.  I googled to see if these was a recipe I could make with the soda, and there were a few recipes for orange soda cake.

This orange soda cake came from The Pioneer Woman blog.  She called her cake an orange Crush cake, but I didn't use Crush.  I made knock you naked brownies from her blog.  They were delicious.

I have also made her cornmeal pancakes.  I have probably made other things from her blog, but I a drawing a blank right now.

She used orange zest in her cake.  I embraced the artificial orange and used orange extract instead.  I also used different ratios for the glaze.

The ingredients for this cake are 1 1/2 cups butter, 3 cups sugar, 5 eggs, 3 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup and 2 tablespoons orange soda, orange food coloring, and 4 teaspoon orange extract.

The glaze ingredients are 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons orange extract, and 2 tablespoons orange soda.

I creamed the butter and sugar together for a few minutes.

I beat in the eggs one at a time.

I mixed in the orange extract and salt.

I mixed in the flour one cup at a time.

I added yellow and red food coloring to make the batter a subtle orange.  I used two drops of yellow for each drop of red.

I poured the batter into a greased bundt pan.  I evened out the top of the cake.  I baked the cake for about and hour and 15 minutes at 325 degrees.  Once I removed the cake from the oven, I let it cool for ten minutes in the pan.  I then inverted the cake onto a cooling rack and let it cool completely.  I was a little anxious about removing the cake from the pan.  It didn't come out easily, but fortunately it came out intact.

To make the glaze, I added the powdered sugar, orange soda, and orange extract into a small bowl.  

I adjusted the powdered sugar and orange soda to make a thick glaze.

Once the cake was cool, I drizzled on the glaze.

This was a delicious and toothsome cake.

The cake was buttery and rich.  It has a dense but not heavy texture.  I think this is pretty much a pound cake.

It was very moist.  This cake was even over a couple of days, and it never dried out.

The inside was tender.  The outside had some golden caramelization. 

The flavor was artificial, but I didn't find it unpleasant.  I went in knowing it would taste like orange soda and not fresh squeezed oranges.

The glaze had a welcome orange flavor as well.  It was sweet and crunchy.  

I was worked that I might had added too much orange extract, but I think it was the right amount.  The orange flavor was decernable but not overwhelming.  

Overall, I'm satisfied with how this cake turned out.  The texture was fantastic, and the flavor was good.