Double Orange Cake Recipe
Need an easy orange cake recipe for Halloween or Autumn, or both? I made this cake and it’s delicious. I got the recipe from one of my issues of the Mail Box News. A little monthly newsletter written by Maid of Scandinavia that started back in 1956.
It was written to compliment the company’s mail order business of wonderful cookware and accessories for baking. Unfortunately the company doesn’t exist anymore and the magazine was purchased by Grace McNamara Inc in 2003, the publishers of American Cake Decorating. They turned it into a full color magazine format, but sad to say, Mailbox News is no longer produced in print.
You can find some of these sweet little vintage magazines for sale here and there on the internet. I haven’t posted mine for sale (I have about 50 of them) in my store yet. I guess I should share and make them available. We’ll see.
The issue I used was from September 1971. It has some great ideas for cake decorating, of course, but also many tested sweet and savory recipes from readers.
I don’t have any ball cake pans, so mine was made in an ordinary 9 x 12 sheet cake pan, which meant I reduced the cooking time to around 40-45 minutes instead of the 60 to 65 suggested. I used all of the batter in the sheet pan and it fit perfectly.
The cake mix I used was Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Orange Supreme. For the frosting, I used a can of white cream frosting. To turn it orange I first mixed a couple drops of red and yellow food coloring together, then mixed them directly into the can of frosting until I liked the color.
It was very easy to make, moist and a fun treat. It would be fun to decorate however you’d like for Halloween or Fall.
On to the recipe:
If you’d like to print the recipe, just click on it and file, print. This is the cover:
I have about 16 years of Mailbox News magazines all categorized by month. Any idea of a who might be interested in them?
Wow that’s great. They’re great little magazines. Not sure who might like them. You could list them for sale on Etsy or EBay. There are quite a few listings for them on eBay.
Hi, Debra. Do you, by any chance, have the Mailbox News issue that has a recipe for Alexander Torte? It was around the same time (1965?) as this recipe, I believe.
Hi Susan,
I’ll be busy today and this weekend, but I’ll take a look first thing Monday morning and let you know.
Thanks! Debra
I started looking through my Mailbox News magazines this morning. The closest thing I found to the Alexander Torte were Raspberry Squares. I have an index with my 1965-1966 magazines and did not see it listed there. I looked through the 1967-1972 issues I have, some months are missing, and didn’t see it. I did find a Special Pineapple Torte, Chocolate Rum Torte, Almond Mocha Torte, Sacher Torte(Chocolate with apricot), Almond Wafer Torte and a Nut Torte. I think I need to do a blog post on just the Torte recipes I found!
If you are interested in any of these, let me know I’ll do a post that includes the recipe. I found the recipe for the Raspberry Squares in the March 1969 issue:
RASPBERRY SQUARES
Butter Cookie Dough:
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup sugar
2-1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 egg yolk
Filling:
1/2 cup raspberry jam
In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, sugar and flour. Rub the butter into the flour and sugar, add the egg yolk and work the crumbs into a soft, well-blended dough. Chill 2 hours.
Roll our 2/3 of the dough directly on cookie sheet into a rectangle about 10 x 12 inches. Spread with firm raspberry jam. Roll out the remaining dough and cut with a pastry wheel into strips about 1/2-inch wide. Arrange the strips in a net pattern on top of the cake. Bake at 350℉. for 12 to 15 minutes or until the strips are barely golden. Let the cake cool for 5 minutes and cut into squares or diamonds.
Enjoy!
Debra