Eggless Orange Cake (+ Vegan & Whole Wheat)

Making batter

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius/356 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. Sieve whole wheat flour with the corn starch (or custard powder), a pinch of salt, baking powder and baking soda. Keep this sieved mixture aside.
3. In a bowl add the sugar and oil. You can also use softened butter instead of oil.
4. With an electric beater or hand beater or a wooden spoon, beat this mixture of oil/butter and sugar for a few minutes until well blended. Set aside. I have made this cake with jaggery too. So you can add powdered or grated jaggery instead of sugar.
5. Now make the fresh orange juice. You can extract the juice with a handheld juicer or in an electric juice or blender. For the blender method, blend the orange segments (with seeds removed) and strain the juice to filter out the fibers. I have used three medium oranges to get a bit more than 1 cup juice.
6. You can use packaged juice too.
7. Measure and add 1 cup of the orange juice to the sugar and oil mixture. If using whole wheat flour, then 1 cup of orange juice works well and if using all purpose flour, then you can add about ¾ cup of orange juice.
8. Mix very well until all the sugar is dissolved.
9. Now add the sifted flour mixture and orange zest. To get a more dominant flavor of oranges, add a bit of orange extract or essence.
10. Mix everything very well with a wired whisk. There should be no lumps in the cake batter.

Baking orange cake

1. Pour the batter in a lined or greased cake tin of about 7×4 inches. Use a spatula to scrape the batter from sides and add it to the cake pan.
2. Tap the pan from the sides or tap the bottom of the pan on the countertop, so that excess air bubbles are released and the batter becomes even in the pan.
3. Bake the cake in a preheated oven for 180 degrees Celsius/356 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 to 35 minutes.
4. Check the cake by inserting a bamboo skewer and it should come out clean. If it has any batter on it, bake the cake for some more minutes.
5. Place the cake on a wired tray or rack to cool it completely at room temperature.
6. Later gently remove it from the pan. Slice the eggless orange cake and serve as a sweet dessert or with tea or coffee. You can wrap the remaining cake or store in an tight container and keep in the fridge for about a week.