Mom's Orange Bundt Cake (Caka't Pertikaleh)

Anytime you enter an Assyrian home, you are greeted with warm hospitality, tea, and a slice of homemade Orange Bundt Cake. A moist and flavorful orange cake, loaded with raisins and walnuts. The orange glaze is delicious but optional. And yes, there's a hole in this cake!

🛒What You Need For This Recipe

🔖 Recipe Ingredient Notes

• Orange — I recommend using fresh orange juice in this orange bundt cake recipe. Especially since you will need orange zest to mix in the batter and in the glaze.
• Apple Sauce — I recently added applesauce to this recipe after my husband complained that the cake wasn't moist enough. I chose to add applesauce instead of more butter and so glad I did. It did the trick without the added fat.
• Orange Glaze — The orange glaze is listed as optional but I highly recommend trying it! It really intensifies the orange flavor.

🧐Why This Recipe Works

Most Assyrian families have some version of this orange bundt cake. I created this recipe for Mom's Authentic Assyrian Recipes in an effort to recreate my mom's orange cake recipe. Although mom never added glaze to her orange cake, I believe she would have loved it.  

It took a lot of experimenting, and a lot of calories consumed until I was able to replicate mom's recipe. But I went a step further, I recently made some changes to the recipe that made it even tastier.

Besides adding applesauce, I increased the amount of orange juice to make it even moister. I also snuck in a teaspoon of cardamom, which some of you know is my favorite spice. Luckily, cardamom goes really well with the orange flavor.

🍰 How to Make This Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

STEP 1: Generously grease a bundt cake pan with butter, then dust with flour.

STEP 2: Cream butter, then mix in sugar. Beat until blended.

STEP 3: Whisk eggs then add to the mixing bowl along with milk, apple sauce, vanilla, 3 tablespoons of orange juice, and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Beat until blended.

STEP 4: In a separate bowl, stir flour, baking soda, baking powder, cardamom, and salt. Add orange zest (set a few teaspoons aside if you plan on making an orange glaze).

STEP 5: Pour half of the flour mixture into the mixer and stir until incorporated. Stir walnuts and raisins into the remaining flour to coat. Pour the remaining flour into the mixer and beat just until blended.

STEP 6: Pour the batter into the prepared bundt cake pan. Bake the cake for one hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Cool the cake in the pan for approximately 10 minutes. To un-mold, place a large, flat plate or wire rack over the pan and flip the cake over. Allow to cool completely before cutting.

Orange Glaze (optional)

To make the orange glaze, mix powdered sugar with the remaining orange zest and approximately 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed orange juice until smooth. Drizzle the glaze over the top of the warm cake.

👩🏼‍🍳 Recipe Pro Tips

• If you don't have oranges, you can use tangelos or tangerines.
• Lemon zest can also be added to the batter.
• Mixing the walnuts and raisins in the flour first will keep them from sinking to the bottom of the cake once it's cooked so don't skip this step! 
• The glaze is perfect for "gluing" pieces of the orange cake back on if they stick to the pan after unmolding the cake. It's also great for hiding imperfections.

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