It is freezing here in Ohio and I mean a bone chilling, teeth chattering, freezing…a whopping 12 degrees. The bad part is that it’s not even snowing, my theory is simple…if it’s going to be this cold, at least gimme a snow day, but unfortunately I have not gotten a single one this year! In the midst of this Ohio deep freeze, I was craving a little piece of summer and just happened to have some gorgeous oranges on my counter. I adapted a very simple recipe from the Joy of Baking, tweaking it just a bit to tantalize your taste buds with a lovely burst of orange. I then piped on some cream cheese frosting and enjoyed a little bit of summer! Bake these little beauties in bright cupcake liners, top them with sparkling sugar and I am betting that you will make the special people in your life very happy! Have a fabulous day and stay warm!
Notes:
Cupcake Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking;
Cream Cheese Frosting adapted from The Repressed Pastry Chef
Cupcake liners from World Market
Icing Tip from Bake It Pretty
Print this recipe
Orange Cupcakes
Ingredients
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of pure orange extract
Zest of 1 orange (optional)
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (60 ml) milk
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and lightly butter or line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.
2. Place the sugar and orange zest into the bowl of your mixer and blend until moist and fragrant. Add in butter and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and orange extracts.
In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing.
-Makes 12 cupcakes
Cream Cheese Frosting
(1) 8 ounce package of cream cheese; room temperature
2 tablespoon of butter; room temperature
1 tablespoon of shortening
1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup confectioners sugar; add more to reach desired consistency
Directions
1. Combine cream cheese, shortening and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until smooth, creamy and well blended.
2. Blend in the vanilla extract.
3. Slowly add the confectioners’ sugar until you reach the desired consistency.
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{ 63 comments… read them below or add one }
Those look perfect! I love orange flavored baked goodies.
This looks very yummy, I think it’s exactly what I’m looking for!
I’m here in Mansfield, CT and we’re at about 7 degrees this morning so I can sympathize with your deep winter woes. I did a recent photoshoot with asparagus just to remind myself that spring green does exist. As much as I’m not a fan chipping everything out of the ice, there is something to be said for winter; it brings out an innate desire to fire up the stove and put some miles on the oven
Ok, I love these. I usually don’t like cupcakes-gasp! I am a cookie girl:) But these look fresh and fruity! Great photos too!
These are one of my most favorite cupcakes EVER!! I make a recipe from my grandmother but add coconut. They are so yummy!
That’s a very beautiful pic of your delicious cupcakes. It’s so inviting and yummy. It’s very cold here in France too. I wish it would snow then it wouldn’t be this freezing cold.
YUM! these look great! could def use a bit of “summer” since it’s been snowing here all morning!
I do so believe that these would brighten my day! Wonderful. And I have those ‘same’ oranges sitting on my counter calling my name. After a quick orange pound cake, I think I shall make these little beauties!
I do believe that my daughter and I are going to give these a try. Love having a girl’s day with my 8 year old baby! Can’t wait!
Thanks so much!
Oh my gosh! Those are so cute. And it’s a really beautiful photo, too.
Oh YUM! I love orange cupcakes! I’ll have to give these a try!
These look so good! Can’t wait to try them out! And the frosting looks perfect.
Oh my! Those look amazing! I sure hope you are able to think up to Cupcake Tuesday this week.
~Liz
Wow, those look soooo yummy! I love cream cheese frosting.
I had a question for you. What kind of a tip did you use to pipe on your cupcakes?
Yummy! These cupcakes look so good and refreshing. If I make this, I’m going to add some orange zest and a little juice to the frosting as well. YUM!!
Stay warm!
they look so tasty!!!
What size tips are those? I hate swirling my icing so I love the dab and lift huge tips!
Oh these look and sound so light and refreshing!!!! beautiful!
Not sure where in OH you are located but my family lives in Northwest OH and they confirm with you that it’s freezing! My dad likes to call me and let me know what weather is headed my way in NY. I think this little gem of a cupcake is perfect for reminding us of the summer that is not that far away….
Call me crazy but i dont see the orange zest in the ingredient list.
Jules- It’s there, under the pure orange extract.
I found the recipe for my daughter’s b-day party! Thank you!
These are absolutely gorgeous! I too am really craving a bit of summer right now.
These seem like the perfect cupcake for a rainy day. A little bit of orange to brighten up the gloom.
Can you tell me what tip you used for these fab cuppies? Ateco or Wilton or??
Hi! The link to the tip is located in the post under “notes” it is from Bake It Pretty.
Hi Jamie,
The link to the bake it pretty site for the tip gives an error of page not found in the site itself
I like this tip. cud u plz give the details for it. thanx a ton.
These orange cupcakes look fabulous and yummy! Husband and I visited my family over the holidays in Ohio, and we f-r-o-z-e (it wasn’t even as cold as it is now!) Keep warm, and enjoy the cuppies.
These are beautiful! What tip did you use to make the beautiful frosting top?
It is freezing here in NW Ohio!
The recipe looks great!
the frosting is SO adorable! never really thought of pairing orange with cream cheese but then again, i always forget that cream cheese goes well with citrusy stuff among others~ lovely cupcake:)
Yum! I love the new blog, but I must admit that I miss the cutesy girl header from the old one
I’m glad you had a minute to link up to Cupcake Tuesday! Thanks so much!
~Liz
I made these tonight and they were wonderful. I skipped the frosting and made half of them with a dark chocolate ganache swirl, then filled the other half with the same. Delicious.
Thank you for sharing the icing tip link. I love that effect.
Oh wow, this looks gorgeous! I’ll be trying it this weekend! =D
Just made these; absolutely delicious! The texture is perfect; almost crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside. The smell was tantalizing when they were baking! My only change was replacing the orange extract with vanilla, as I’d run out – the orange flavour from the zest was enough though.
I also cheated a bit and added a tiny bit of food colouring to the frosting to make it orange, after adding in more zest as well – very pretty & tasty.
The cake part turned out a little but dry. What can I do to fix that? But other than that they were really good. Loved the frosting!
Hi Jamie, I came across your blog when I searched for an orange cupcake recipe. I made them last night and they were delicious! Though, they weren’t as orange as yours were, did you add food coloring?
I wanted to mention my modifications, I added white chocolate chips to the batter and in addition to icing the top of the cupcakes, I used the icing to fill the cakes when they cooled. I did this by increasing the amount of cream cheese by half and adding a little more butter and shortening, I found that I didn’t need to increase the conf. sugar.
They were like orange cremesicles and the typical reaction to them was “OMG, that’s even better than I was expecting!”
Thanks for the recipe!
Just made these (following the recipe) in my new Kitchen Aid mixer…and the cupcake turned out dry and tasted more like cornbread than cake. Not sure what went wrong…the only change I made was using tangerines for a more tart flavor and substituting a 1/4 cup of tangerine juice for most of the milk. Most recipes don’t call for 3 eggs, and maybe more sugar and less flour would help, too.
we made these and i agree that they are a little dry and i followed the recipe perfectly and even left them in for a shorter period of time…. the icing would be nicer if it had more of an orange taste to it to compliment the batter.
Here in Finland we have -20 degrees right now, and too much snow, over 2meter !
Cupcakes looks delicious
Hi Jamie,
I was wondering….some of your cupcake recipes call for cake flour and some for all purpose flour. Can you clarify why the difference? I would think that the cake flour would make them fluffier. Also, would beating the egg whites help to make them fluffier?
Thanks!
Kathy-
The use of cake flour will impart a more tender and fluffy cake. I have never beaten the egg whites separately before incorporating, so I cannot really say if thay will effect the final outcome. Thanks for stopping by.
-Jamie
I made these cupcakes and they turned out dry. I followed the recipe exactly word for word. Next time I think I am going to make an orange simple syrup and brush those on the top of the cupcakes after they come out of the oven. I think that It will make them a little more moist.
Yum yum yum! Just made these- nice and moist and a lovely orange flavour. I used a simple orange icing on top (icing sugar and fresh orange juice) instead and added a few flaked almonds. Give it a go!
Where did you get the cupcake liners? I tried goin to worlds market website and I can not find it anywhere.
love the way you pipe these orange cupcakes!! do you have a special tip for it?
Could we replace orange extract with freshly squeezed juice?
I love zesty cupcakes!
could you please show or explain how did you pipe this beautiful frosting over the cupcake, and i noticed that you usually use shortining on your forsting can i omit it, i do have it but i don’t know why i avoid myself to use it for health issues lik the trans fat. thanks.
Amerma0b-
Check out my Piping How-To Video in this post – hopefully it helps you! Thanks for stopping by!
-Jamie
Jamie, I love your picture, very pretty! I followed your recipe but my cupcakes came out dry….any ideas on why that may have happened?
Keri-
Sorry this recipe didn’t work well for you. This cake is definitely a bit more dense than a typical cupcake, but I don’t remember them being dry. Sorry I am not more of a help – I made these a really long time ago. Thanks for stopping by.
-Jamie
The link for the baking tip no longer works. Do you recall which size/brand tip you used?
Josette-
The tip is the large French Tip from Bake It Pretty. Thanks for stopping by.
-Jamie
My family tends to enjoy citrus desserts, so I knew I had to try this one. Very yummy, and good orange flavor. I didn’t have quite enough orange extract left in the bottle so I substituted orange juice for half of the milk. Also, I would recommend using twice the amount of milk called for in this recipe (or use 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup orange juice) because I found these to be just a teeny bit dry or else I baked them too long. You really don’t notice it much with the icing, but I prefer cake to be moist. I also used only 3 oz. of cream cheese in the icing and there was more than enough frosting for the cupcakes.
Yum! Pretty good, but they are slightly dry. I took them out at 16 minutes and they were done. (so maybe next time try 15 minutes). I used zest from a orange plus took a quarter of the orange and squeezed the juice into the batter. Also this made 10 cupcakes for me. (I used a 3 tablespoon ice cream scoop).
I finally made these tonight and I’m sorry but they were terrible. The stuck to the liners and became a gluey mess in the liner. I followed the directions to a T. I’m bummed and will have to find a new recipe. Sorry.
Hi there!! i wanna know what nozzle you use for decorating this cupcake…its pretty n i wanna do the same…:)
Kaniz-
I used a large French tip. I hope this helps.
-Jamie
watch out with the fresh orange zest when I tried to make it the butter curdled.
What is the tip that you used?
Jennifer-
A large French tip was used on these cupcakes. Good luck and have a great day!
-Jamie
Do you think this could be converted into a layer cake – or should I stick with the cupcakes?
Thanks very much – the recipe sounds wonderful.
Erin-
I have not tried this recipe in cake form, so I am unable to advise you in that direction. If the recipe were more current, I think I would be of more help. Thanks so much for stopping by.
-Jamie
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