Orange Spice Cake from Cake Mix
Fall is the season of spice cakes! Today's Orange Spice Cake recipe is a new favorite of ours-- and it is so easy to make with a cake mix!
This easy Orange Spice Cake is bursting with so much flavor-- I've never tried adding orange to spice cakes before and now that I have, I never want to go back. Make sure to check out our recipe for homemade Spice Cupcakes as well!
Table of Contents
How to Make Orange Spice Cake with a Cake Mix
**You can find the full, printable cake recipe below but here is a basic rundown!:
- After preheating the oven to 325 degrees, grease and flour three 8x2 round cake pans. (You could also make two thick 8 inch cake layers but I like the additional layer of cream cheese filling that three layers gives us!)
- In the bowl of your mixer, combine dry ingredients and whisk at least 30 seconds to blend. In another bowl, combine sour cream, water, eggs, & flavorings and zest.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stop after 1 minute to scrape the sides and bottom of bowl then continue to beat for the second minute.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake at 325 degrees....check at 25 minutes to see if middle of cake springs back when touched, a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake come out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, and the cake will be slightly pulled away from the pan.
Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting
I absolutely love cream cheese frosting on spice cakes, and so went with a spiced cream cheese frosting with a little extra orange added!
You'll notice that the recipe calls for a little orange extract- I just wanted to give it a little boost of extra orange flavor without having to add a lot of liquid to the frosting (since cream cheese frostings are softer than buttercream).
The orange extract is optional- if you don't have any on hand, you can just add additional zest. Plain cream cheese frosting is a great choice also.
This is such an easy frosting recipe and tastes SO good!
I frosted the cake in our Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting, and textured around the sides with a small offset spatula.
For the piping on top, I used a piping tip 1M and also added additional orange zest!
More Fall Cake Recipes
We've made many more fall cake recipe over the years! You can find our full roundup here: Roundup of the BEST Fall Cake Recipes!
- Pumpkin Spice Cake Recipe (from scratch)
- Pumpkin Spice Cake- Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
- Apple Spice Cake- Doctored Cake Mix
- Gingerbread Cake- Doctored Cake Mix
- Maple Pecan Cake from Scratch
- Pecan Spice Cake from Scratch
Enjoy the Recipe!
We hope that you enjoy this Orange Spice Cake as much as we have! If you give it a try, we'd love to hear what you think in the comments below!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Orange Spice Cake- A Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
Ingredients
For the Orange Spice Cake Layers
- 1 box Spice Cake Mix, sifted ( we used Duncan Hines 15.25 oz.)
- 1 cup (121g) all purpose flour
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- generous dash of salt
- 1 cup (242g) sour cream or plain yogurt (greek yogurt is fine also)
- 1 cup (240g) orange juice
- 1 Tablespoon Orange Zest (about 1 medium sized orange)
- 3 whole eggs
- 2 teaspoons (8g)vanilla
For the Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks) (339g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 ½ packages ( (339 g) (8 ounces packages) cream cheese (soften just slightly
- and cut into pieces to add to bowl
- 2 teaspoons (4g) cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon (1g) nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger (2g) *sift if clumpy
- 1 teaspoon orange flavoring (4g)
- 1.5 Tablespoons Orange Zest (adjust to your liking)
- 6 to 6 ½ cups (690g - 748g) more if needed confectioners’ sugar, sifted
Instructions
For the Orange Spice Cake
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Grease and flour three 8x2 round cake pans.
In the bowl of your mixer, combine dry ingredients and whisk at least 30 seconds to blend. In another bowl, combine sour cream, orange juice, eggs, & flavorings and zest.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stop after 1 minute to scrape the sides and bottom of bowl then continue to beat for the second minute.
Pour into prepared pans and bake at 325 degrees....check at 35 minutes to see if middle of cake springs back when touched, a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake come out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, and the cake will be slightly pulled away from the pan.
We bake at 325 degrees to decrease the height of the dome on the cakes.
Makes about 7 cups of batter. Works well for cupcakes too!
Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting
Using your mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until well blended.
Add the flavoring, zest, and spices. With the mixer on low speed gradually add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until it is a good piping consistency.
This sounds delicious. Could it be made using a tube pan?
Hi Lisa, We have not made this recipe in a tube pan but I think it would be fine to do so. I am sure of the baking time for a tube pan so
keep an eye on it. The cake will be done when a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
it would be good and for a twist put half in bottom of pan an sprinkle a little zest and cinnamon then pour rest of batter on top
do about 350° oven timer about 40min check depending on oven.
The recipe says 35 minutes and I thought about it and in your step by step it says 25 minutes. I just pulled the cake layers out at 34 minutes and I have a feeling they're over baked. Wow, I hope I don't have a dried out cake.
It turned out great! Very delicious cake!!!!
Made this cake to take to my son’s for a visit and it traveled so well in a cooler with ice packs for the six hour trip. We all loved it and it was a nice change in flavor from the typical holiday flavors. This will be my New Years go to cake recipe in the future. Thank you! Becky
Hi Becky! Thanks so much for your feedback, I'm so glad that you all enjoyed it!
The cake recipe was delicious, however the frosting was way too thick and sweet for my taste and I only used 5 cups of powered sugar. It was impossible to spread on my cake. I would make the cake again but use a different icing.
Hi Becky- Sorry that I'm just now seeing your comment-- whenever a frosting is too thick (and assuming it wasn't just taken out of the refrigerator as it would need time to warm and soften)- you can always add a bit of milk to reach the desired consistency.
anxious to start baking !!!
Can I make this spice cake in a sheet cake pan?