Orange Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting

Hands up if you LOVE Martha Stewart *puts hand up!* I DO! I go to her website quite often for inspiration, not just for cakes and recipes but interior decorating an wedding planning (I'm helping a friend plan her wedding at the moment) Martha is amazing!

I made this ruffle cake for a friend using some lovely Martha Stewart recipes.

Orange Cake
Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients
170g Unsalted Butter (Softened)
2 1/4 C Flour
2 1/4 t Baking Powder
1/4 t Salt
1 1/2 C Sugar
3 Eggs
3/4 C Buttermilk (or 1 T lemon juice or white vinegar mixed in with 3/4 C milk)
Zest of 1 Orange

• Heat oven to 180 degrees C and line one 8" or three 6" cake tins. 
• Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.
• Beat butter on a medium setting until light and fluffy, about four minutes.
• Add sugar and beat well.
• Add eggs one at a time making sure to beat well after each addition.
• Add flour and buttermilk, starting and finishing with the flour.
• Stir in orange zest and pour batter into cake tin/s.
• Bake for about 30 minutes or until skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Cool in tin for 15 minutes then remove and place on cooling rack before icing.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting
Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients
225g Unsalted Butter (softened)
3/4 C Sugar
3 Egg Whites
1/2 t Vanilla Extract

• Beat butter with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
• In double boiler over simmering water, whisk sugar and egg whites until warm and sugar is dissolved (about 2 or 3 minutes). 
• Transfer egg mixture to a clean bowl and beat on high with whisk attachment until fluffy and cooled (about 10 minutes).
• Reduce mixer to medium-low; add butter 1/4 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. 
• Add vanilla and mix until combined.
• Switch to a paddle attachment (or normal attachment) and beat on the lowest speed 3 to 5 minutes.

Recipe Notes:
I halved the recipe for the Swiss Meringue Buttercream, mainly because (if you live in NZ like me) you would have to be rich to be using a whole block of butter on one cake these days, also because it's fatty! This quantity covered my 6 inch cake using the ruffle technique.