Blood Orange Bourbon Butter Cake

This cake is as delicious as it sounds. It’s one of my all time favourite cakes. It’s a pound cake. There’s a fair bit of butter in it, but please don’t stop reading. A thin slice of this cake is worth the calorie splurge. I made this cake recently for a girls’ brunch and it was a big hit. It’s dense, but it’s also really moist too. The texture is amazing.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1 3/4 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp fresh squeezed blood orange juice (or orange juice)

The zest of one blood orange (or orange juice)

1 cup buttermilk

2 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Butter Bourbon Sauce

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp hot water

1 tbsp bourbon (or dark rum)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease the pan (with butter) and then flour the pan.

Cream the butter and then add the sugar gradually. Add the orange zest. Blend until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. If you’re using a stand mixer, I would remove the bowl at this point in time and scrape the bottom of the bowl with a spatula to ensure that the butter isn’t stuck to the bottom of the bowl.

Add half of the buttermilk, the vanilla and the blood orange juice. Add half of the dry ingredients. Add the rest of the buttermilk. Add the remaining dry ingredients.

Mix all of the ingredients on low speed until mostly incorporated and then at medium speed.

I like to put my greased pan in the fridge for a couple of minutes so that it sets solid. This is a good thing to do if the cake batter is thick. The refrigeration will solidify the butter so that it doesn’t get disturbed when you pour the batter into the pan.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake at 325 degrees for 60 to 65 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Prick the surface of what will be the bottom of the cake with a toothpick while it’s still warm. You want to have lots of little holes for the butter bourbon sauce to fall into. Space the holes about an inch apart.

To make the sauce, heat the sugar, butter and hot water. When it’s all nicely incorporated, take the pan off the heat. Add a tablespoon of bourbon and give it a quick stir. Pour the warm butter sauce over the warm cake. You need to do this while the cake is relatively warm because it’s a dense cake and if you wait until it’s cool, the sauce won’t be able to seep into the cake very well.

You can double or triple the amount of butter sauce if you want a more decadent cake. The original recipe called for a lot more butter sauce, but because I also like to glaze the top of the cake as well, I thought that it was a bit too decadent.

Allow the cake to cool 10 to 15 minutes before removing it from the pan onto a serving plate.

Blood Orange Bourbon Glaze

Whisk 2 tablespoons strained blood orange juice, 1 teaspoon bourbon and 1/2 cup icing sugar until smooth. (If you want the glaze to be a little thicker, add an additional tablespoon or two of icing sugar). Spoon over the cake.

Enjoy!