A Summery Vegan Orange Cake Recipe

This vegan orange cake (Rainbow Nourishments) is super-simple to make, ideal use up leftover fruits. What a way to get your vitamin C, as this includes 6 fresh oranges (juice and zest too) with no need for expensive orange juice extract. Made with oat drink and a light oil (rapeseed or sunflower is fine).

The cake is topped with a delicious vegan buttercream icing (choose vegan butter with no palm oil – Lurpak and Flora are good brands).

Keep citrus fruits away from pets (read more on food safety for people and pets). Bin citrus scraps as acids could harm compost creatures (same for rhubarb/tomato and allium scraps (onion, leeks, garlic, shallots, chives). It’s okay to put them in food waste bins (made into biogas).

For tinned ingredients, remove/pop lids inside, or pop ring-pulls back over holes (pinch top closed) before recycling, to avoid wildlife getting trapped.

Buy loose oranges to avoid plastic nets (never compost) or take zero waste produce bags to the store. To dispose of existing fruit netting, cut open the holes and place inside a larger sealed bag for disposal at supermarket bag bins (remove/recycle metal clips).

Why are oranges so popular in England?

Oranges are quite new to England, only arriving on our shores in the 17th century, and back then were only eaten by wealth people, with access to orangeries (large greenhouses). It’s known that Queen Eleanor (who moved to England from Spain) would order the fruits to dock at Portsmouth harbour, as she was homesick for oranges!

Today, most oranges sold in England are from southern Europe. But Pesticide Action Network writes that (along with grapes), oranges are often covered in a cocktail of chemicals, so choose organic if you can.

Spanish blood oranges can be subbed for most recipes though the taste and colour may differ. Other related fruits to oranges are mandarins, clementines and easy-to-peel Japanese satsumas.