Fresh Tangerine Cake

Keeping with my Paula Deen dessert weekend I chose to make her Fresh Tangerine Cake for Easter Lunch. I found this in her current issue of Cooking With Paula Deen. I have never worked with tangerines before and thought the challenge might be interesting. I think finding good tangerines was really the challenge and I left that up to my husband.
It baked up very nicely although the 25 minutes was not long enough in my oven. I have found that this is not unusual for a Paula recipe. I think she uses some kind of turbo oven instead of your regular home oven. My cake took 33 minutes, but I’m always leery of stating an exact time based on the experiences I have had with my current rent house oven. So just keep an eye on yours.
The taste was not over powering at all. In fact, it needed more tangerine taste in my opinion. I was happy to see how moist it was since it was so dense. There was plenty of frosting to go around, and next time I will cut my layers in half for a better cake to frosting ratio.

Fresh Tangerine Cake
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¾ cups sugar
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tab tangerine zest
1 cup fresh tangerine juice
3 large eggs
1 (8 oz) container sour cream
See frosting recipe

Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 (9 inch) round cake pans with cooking spray with flour.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Beat in oil, zest, juice, and eggs at medium speed with an electric mixer until combined. Add sour cream, beating until smooth.
Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and cool completely on wire racks.
Spread Tangerine Cream Cheese Frosting in between layers and on top and sides of cake. Optional: Garnish with candied tangerine zest and pipe remaining frosting around top and bottom of cake.

Tangerine Cream Cheese Frosting
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
½ cup butter, softened
1 tab tangerine zest
3 tab fresh tangerine juice
6 cups confectioner’s sugar

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in zest and juice until combined. Gradually beat in confectioner’s sugar until smooth.