Creamsicle Cake

To Make the Creamsicle Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and line two 6-inch baking pans OR a 8x8-inch cake pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand-up mixer with the paddle attachment (alternatively you can do this in a large bowl with an electric mixer), add the sugar and orange zest. Beat the two together. This will release all of the fragrant oils in the orange zest and infuse them in the sugar. We want this, we need this. Add the butter and vanilla extract; beat until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. If you want the cake to be orange in color, add 2 drops of food coloring gel. This is of course optional.
4. In a measuring cup, pour in the milk, egg whites, and add the strained orange juice.
5. Turn the mixer to low speed and, alternating between the dry ingredients and the liquid ingredients, add them to the butter/sugar mixture, until the batter is relatively smooth.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pans (or pan) and smooth it out until it reaches the sides. Transfer to the oven to bake for 25 to 32 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Allow the cake layers to cool in their pans for about 10 minutes and then invert onto a cooling rack and cool to room temperature. It’ll probably take a good hour.

To Make the Buttercream Frosting:

1. In the bowl of a stand-up mixer with the paddle attachment (or a medium bowl using an electric hand mixer), add the the butter and beat it until smooth, about 15 seconds.
2. Add the powdered sugar, salt, vanilla and heavy cream. Beat for a full 2 minutes to ensure fluffy, delicious frosting.

To Make the Orange for Decoration:

1. To two bowls, add about 1/4 cup of frosting to each. You can eyeball this. One will be our orange and another will be our stems (green). Add a drop or two of orange food coloring to one frosting bowl. And add a drop or two of green food coloring gel to the second frosting bowl. Mix until smooth. Transfer the orange frosting to a piping bag fitted with a #3 round piping tip.
2. Transfer the green frosting to a piping bag fitted with a #1 round piping tip.

To Decorate the Cake:

1. Add the frosting to the top of the cake and smooth it out into an even layer. Make it cute with some swoops.
2. If you didn’t do the oranges above, no biggie. Top it with some sprinkles OR leave it as is. It’s cute.
3. To add the oranges, pipe on rounds of frosting; they’ll end up looking like oranges once we add the tops. Add as many as you like. Make them any size you like, too. Dip your finger in a bit of water and tap the tops of the oranges to make them appear smoother.
4. Pipe on a “leaf" shape at the top of each of the oranges. This will make it appear like they have a stem.

To Store Cake:

1. I keep this cake at room temperature on my counter. I don’t own a glass cake cover so I use a colander. This cake is delicious for about 2 to 3 days. If my way leaves you unsettled, you can always place the cake back into the 8x8-inch baking dish and cover it with plastic wrap. You can also place them in containers with lids and just store them at room temp.