There’s nothing I love more than the flavor of orange in a baked good – no joke, I’m obsessed. The scent and smell of sweet oranges are just my favorite, and this orange zucchini cake might just top any orange desserts I’ve ever made. The cake itself has the perfect, flavorful-yet-not-too-sweet taste, then the fluffy orange frosting brings together all of that sunshine goodness that tastes like a creamsicle.
YO GIRL DID IT AGAIN.
Looking for a dessert to impress friends and family at your next BBQ? This is IT. It just so happens to be gluten free and is easily made dairy free, so it’s great for sharing with a crowd. I know you’ll love this one!
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Orange + zucchini = a match made in dessert heaven
Okay not only is this cake gorgeous and absolutely delicious, but it’s also:
- Easy to make: right in one bowl and one baking pan. You’re welcome.
- Gluten free: by using a mix of almond flour and gluten free oat flour.
- Perfectly moist: thanks to shredded zucchini and yogurt.
- Naturally sweetened with honey: this cake uses honey as the natural sweetener and it’s truly so perfect when paired with the flavor of orange and slight hint of almond.
Everything you’ll need to make this orange zucchini cake
Get ready to fall in love with the bright, perfectly sweet flavors in this orange zucchini cake. It’s gluten free, naturally sweetened, and easily dairy free, too! Here’s what you’ll need to make it:
- Zucchini: that’s right, we’re baking this cake up with one of my fav veggies. You won’t be able to taste the zucchini at all – it just adds moisture so that we don’t need to add any oil.
- Eggs: you’ll need 2 eggs in this orange zucchini cake.
- Sweetener: as mentioned, we’re naturally sweetening this cake with honey! You can also use pure maple syrup, but I prefer honey here.
- Orange: we’re using both fresh orange juice and zest to get the best orange flavor.
- Yogurt: I originally used siggi’s orange ginger yogurt in this recipe, but I’m not sure if it’s still available. Feel free to use plain or vanilla yogurt for extra moisture!
- Flours: you’ll need both blanched almond flour and oat flour for the perfect texture and to keep the cake gluten free. Learn how to make your own oat flour here.
- Baking staples: don’t forget the baking soda, salt, vanilla extract and almond extract (the best way to bring out the orange flavor!)
- For the frosting: that luxurious orange frosting is made with butter, powdered sugar, orange juice & zest, and vanilla. You’ll be licking the frosting straight from the spoon, I promise.
Recommended ingredient swaps
As always, I highly suggest baking this orange zucchini cake as written so that you get the best results. I know I’ll get questions about substitutions, so here’s what I can recommend trying:
- To make dairy free: simply use your favorite dairy-free yogurt in the cake, and a vegan buttery stick for the frosting.
- To make vegan: please note that I have not tested this recipe with flax eggs, but let me know in the comments if you do! I also recommended switching the honey to maple syrup to make it a true vegan cake.
Chocolate lovers: this is for you
If you love orange and chocolate together (like in this bread recipe) try adding 1/2 heaping cup chocolate chips (mini chocolate chips would be perfect) right into the orange zucchini cake batter! You’ll get wonderful hints of chocolate in every bite. OMG.
Can I use a different flour?
- I cannot recommend a flour substitution for the almond flour in this recipe as the ingredient ratios will be much different and almond flour provides fat in this recipe to keep it fluffy and moist. Please keep as-is for the best results.
- As a reminder, you can easily make your own oat flour at home with this tutorial!
- If you want to replace the oat flour: I do think all-purpose flour or a GF all purpose flour would work okay in this recipe.
Don’t forget these tips when baking with zucchini
- Use the small side of your grater so that you get perfect shreds of zucchini. No one will be able to tell there’s a veggie in this cake! A simple cheese grater will also work well.
- Shred the zucchini first, measure it out, then squeeze off excess moisture and continue with the recipe.
- Squeeze out your zucchini shreds as much as possible using a cheesecloth, clean dish towel or paper towel to get all of the excess liquid out. This is VERY important so that the orange zucchini cake has the right texture.
- Feel free to shred a bunch of zucchini and freeze it for later! Follow my tips and tricks here.
How to store this orange zucchini cake
Feel free to keep this gluten free orange zucchini cake covered at room temperature for about a day or so, then place it in the fridge covered for 5 days.
Can I freeze it?
Absolutely! I’d recommend freezing this orange zucchini cake with or without frosting. Here’s how:
- Let the cake cool (and frost if desired) then wrap it well in plastic wrap and aluminum foil.
- Place the full cake in a zip-top freezer bag.
- To serve it, thaw the cake in the refrigerator overnight or on the counter until at room temp. Make sure the cake is at room temp before adding the orange frosting (if it doesn’t have it yet) and serving.
More cake recipes you’ll love
- Brown Butter Strawberry Coffee Cake
- Healthy Lemon Poppy Seed Bread
- Chocolate Zucchini Cake (healthy + gluten free)
- Almond Lemon Raspberry Poppy Seed Cake
- Fresh Strawberry Shortcake Bread with Strawberry Glaze
Get all of my cake recipes here!
I hope you love this amazing orange zucchini cake! If you make it be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked it. Enjoy, xo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Orange Zucchini Cake with Orange Frosting
Ingredients
- Wet ingredients:
- 1 medium zucchini
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup (168g) honey
- 1 (5.3 oz) container yogurt
- zest from 1 large orange
- ¼ cup (50g) fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- Dry ingredients:
- 1 ½ cup (168g) packed blanched fine almond flour
- 1 cup (92g) oat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- For the orange frosting:
- ½ cup (113g) butter (or sub vegan buttery stick), at room temperature
- 1 cup (113g) powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- For topping:
- Sliced orange segments
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8 inch square pan with parchment paper and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
- Shred zucchini with a cheese grater or with the shred attachment on your food processor. Measure out 1 cup of shredded zucchini, then place shredded zucchini in a clean paper towel, dish towel or cheese cloth and squeeze out all of the moisture/water. This is very important!
- Add eggs, honey, yogurt, orange zest, orange juice, vanilla and almond extract to a large bowl and whisk together until well combined.
- Next, add dry ingredients: almond flour, oat flour, baking soda and salt. Mix together with a wooden spoon until well combined. Fold in the shredded zucchini.
- Add batter into the prepared pan and spread out evenly. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting. I know this is difficult but it’s critical (otherwise the frosting will melt and become a gooey mess!)
- Make the frosting: beat together butter, powdered sugar, orange juice, zest and vanilla together on medium-high with a hand mixer or in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Spread frosting over cooled cake. Garnish with small orange segments. Cut into 9-12 slices for a bigger piece of cake or 16 slices for more of a snacking cake!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by The Mindful Hapa
67 comments
I was looking for a zucchini bread recipe, but when I saw you posted this recipe on Instagram I just had to make it immediately. It’s an absolutely delicious, relatively healthy, different way to use up some zucchini. The inly changes I made were lowering the honey to 1/3 cup and adding cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger since I used a vanilla flavored yogurt
Amazing! SO happy you made it right away and that it came out great 🙂 Those additions sound lovely!
Just wondering what I could swap for a nut free version. Chickpea? Cassava? Thanks love it…I’ll comment if I try with either how it comes out!
I haven’t tested any other flours and I’m not sure anything else would yield a great texture. But let me know what you end up trying!
I saw this recipe and was eager to male it right away because it looked so delicious and pretty. I didn’t have all the exact ingredients so I made a few modifications and the cake still turned out AWESOME!!! The cake is so so so delicious, light and I love that it has zuchinni in it. It is perfect for breakfast or as a snack and it was SO easy to make!
Here are the modifications I did with what I had at home:
-Plain siggis yogurt instead of the ginger orange one
-Skipped the almond extract and substituted with more vanilla extract
-Used clementine zest instead of orange zest for the frosting.
Like I said, it turned out incredible, if you sre thinking about making this, you definitely should! You won’t regret it
Those are all excellent substitutions! I’m SO happy it turned out perfect. Thank you so much for your sweet review, Marisabel!
So light and fresh! I skipped the frosting as I didn’t have powdered sugar, but so good regardless!
It’s really uplifting and light! Because I didn’t have powdered sugar, I skipped the icing, but it was still delicious! The more articles I read, the better.
What a dream this is! Super moist and that refreshing orange flavor is everything. My supermarket didn’t have that type of Siggi’s so I used Siggi’s vanilla, also used AP flour instead of oat flour. So so yummy!!!
I’m so glad you made it and loved it, Alicia!! Siggi’s vanilla is a great sub 🙂
This looks delicious!!! My local stores do not have the orange and ginger siggis. Can I use vanilla yogurt and mix in some orange extract and dried ginger? Or fresh ginger? Or any other suggestions? If so, how much would you recommend that I use? Thanks!!
Hi! Vanilla yogurt’s a great sub. Feel free to add just a touch of dried ginger (around 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon so that it doesn’t overpower the other flavors!)
Great recipe. Frosting tastes amazing. Used Fage 0% yogurt instead and came out fine. Could use much more salt in my opinion. Next time will do 1/2 tsp maybe even 1 tsp. Ended up needing more like 40-45 min in oven.
Girl- I love ur recipes + this cake was out of this world!! Such great, bright, yummy flavor 😉
Baked 35 mins & knife test was clean but when it cooled it sank in the middle 🙁 could’ve been heavy handed w my oj or did I need to add more bake time w a glass 8×8? We ate the outside pieces & I threw out the middle soggy/undercooked part. Still delicious though and I will make again- I WILL master this lol
Hi! So strange that it sank, sorry to hear that! If the tester came out clean it shouldn’t have… Did you measure out the OJ?
Could you make this as muffins? Thanks!
I haven’t tested it but I don’t see why not!
This cake is delicious! My husband also loved it! My local stores do not stock the orange ginger Siggis, so I used a vanilla greek yogurt and added 1 tsp of orange zest and 1 tsp of dried ginger (although I later realized you had recommended 1/4-1/2 tsp of ginger-whoops! But it didn’t overpower the flavors).I found that it needed more baking time, but I had added in a few TBS extra of orange juice, so that may be why. We will definitely make this again! Thank you!
I will be making this again and again. A seriously delicious and light cake!! Thanks so much for a wonderful recipe.
Should note that I added almond extract to the frosting, too, and it was amazing! My 9-year-old daughter said “best frosting EVER!!!” 🙂
Omg LOVE THAT!! So happy you both enjoyed it so much ❤️
This cake is delicious! Love the bright flavor of the orange and sweetness from the honey. The texture is perfect, moist but not gooey like some gluten free recipes. I will definitely be making this again and have shared the recipe with several friends who are gluten free! Thanks for the amazing recipe Monique!
This cake is absolute perfection! I made it for friends who were visiting and don’t think I’ve ever received more compliments. Like other reviewers, I could not find the orange-ginger Siggi’s, so I used vanilla and added a dash of powdered ginger. This cake rises beautifully and is light and so flavorful. Thank you for yet another fantastic gluten-free recipe-I am making it again this weekend!
So delicious!!! I realized too late that I was out of ginger so subbed allspice. It was still amazing and took 30 minutes on the dot. My husband and I especially loved the icing! Cannot wait to make it again! Thank you for the recipe
I made this into muffins. It made 18 perfect small muffins in my silicon muffin tin. baked for only 20 mins. I did the chocolate chips and added cocoa powder to the frosting.
I’ve made this three times in the past two weeks. I’ve tried with lemon too, I don’t even need to add the honey for sweetness it is so good! Where I am in Canada we don’t have Siggis but I’ve used a mandarin flavoured yogurt or lemon yogurt and it’s worked well. My dog has also been caught on the counter eating so dog approved
This turned out terrible! Texture was gooey, flavor was lacking. Maybe cause I baked in a bread pan? Such a shame to waste all those ingredients and time 🙁 I also thought it was odd there was no oils?
Hi, Laurie. That’s definitely because you baked it in a bread pan, which makes a taller & thicker cake that won’t bake up the same. I’d recommend sticking to the recipe next time.
So delicious!! It really is true, You need to make sure the cake is cooled before putting the frosting on! It looked so good and I got impatient and wanted to try it so I put the frosting before it was cool and the butter melted! I did not make that mistake the next time I made it and yummmmm!
Yes, cooling is essential! But glad it was still delicious haha 🙂
If you sub out 1/2 cup of almond flour for 1/2 cup of dark cocoa powder and add chopped dark chocolate, this makes a delicious chocolate orange bread loaf.. you’re welcome 😊
Sounds delicious!
I would love to bring this to work. Any advice on how to double it?
Hello! It should be fine to bake it in a 9×13 inch baking pan, simply doubling all the ingredients. Let me know how it goes!
I made this. Was not able to find that flavour of yogurt so I used plain and added a little ground ginger. It was a hit! So moist and tasty!
Great idea!! SO happy it turned out delicious 🙂
Full disclosure: I did not make the icing (I had a whipped cream cheese icing leftover from another recipe that I used, so this is a review of the cake).
This cake is AMAZING! It is so moist and flavorful. Even without the orange ginger yogurt (I couldn’t find it so I subbed Siggi’s Vanilla) the orange shone through. It didn’t dry out, nor was it too soggy. Even after thawing slices of the frozen cake it still held up (froze with icing). Will 100% be making this again – highly recommend!
Glad you could use up the other icing on here! And SO happy you loved the cake!! Thanks, Lindsey 🙂
I love the texture of this cake. I left it unfrosted and added dark chocolate chips as mentioned in the recipe notes. Since I used plain greek yogurt, the orange flavor is a little muted but still very good. Still giving it 5 stars because I think it would be perfect with the extra orange flavoring from Siggi’s orange ginger yogurt and the frosting.
Ahh yes that makes sense! Maybe a little extra orange zest next time if you don’t use the Siggi’s 🙂
Could you make cupcakes out of this recipe
I’m sure you can! I haven’t tested it, so not sure about the baking temp/time but you’ll just want to test them with a knife/cake tester to be sure it’s done 🙂
Thank you for this recipe! I”m always looking for gluten-free dessert recipes and this one was not difficult because of the almond flour. However, it is super sweet and several of my guests couldn’t eat it because of it’s sweetness. I’m guessing that it’s from the frosting, although I think the cake needs a frosting. Any other suggestions for frosting?
Hi! Glad it was easy to make. Sorry you found it too sweet! You could reduce the amount of sugar in the frosting, or maybe you could make an orange glaze like the one in this recipe? Hope that helps!
I made this today for our friends after feeling a sudden urge to try one of the zucchini cake recipes. My word, this is a keeper. The buttercream frosting in particular makes this cake reminiscent of an Orange creamsicle, and the cake itself smelled heavenly as it was baking. I had to sub vanilla yogurt as I could not find the orange ginger yogurt anywhere, but it thankfully didn’t take away from the yummy orange flavor. Overall I was amazed at how quickly this actually came together and it’s perfect for having a free Saturday to bake.
Aw this is seriously the best! Glad you found this cake and it turned out great and everyone loved it!
don’t know why but my cake collapsed totally… I didn’t expect super fluffy cake but mine was like a shoe sole…. good flavour though
Oh no, I am so sorry to hear that. Did you change anything about the recipe?
Literally fell in love with this recipe. I made this cake for my MIL’s bday and everyone loved it. I substitute the orange yogurt for vanilla since my grocery story didn’t have the orange flavor. Other than that, I followed the recipe and it turned out amazing. It is so moist and the orange taste is just delicious. I’ll make it again for sure!
Amazing! Glad it was a hit!
I made this for my mother-in-law’s birthday dinner dessert and it was a crowd pleaser! I used vanilla yogurt and added a dash of ginger.
Amazing! Glad it was a hit!
I have not made this cake yet , I want to but I cannot find the orange/ginger yogurt . What can I sub ? Thanks !
Hi! Feel free to use plain or vanilla yogurt 🙂
This is hands down the best cake I’ve ever made. I am such a sucker for orange-anything, and had a giant zucchini from my MIL that I needed to use up. I was worried that the flavor would be less orange-y since I couldn’t find the orange ginger yogurt in my area, but even using plain greek the orange flavor is perfection. I did add a bit more orange juice into my frosting, but dang this was delicious and I will for sure make it again!
Love that! Perfect dessert for an orange-lover 🙂
Hi. I’m excited to make this but I couldn’t find any siggies orange ginger yogurt at the store – even tho that flavor sounds delicious. Would you recommend I add dry ground ginger or fresh and how much?
It will still be delicious even with plain or vanilla yogurt! I’m afraid the dried or fresh ginger might give the cake a strange flavor.
Hi. I made this recipe for some friends and they loved it. However, I did add some cream cheese to the frosting. Yum! I am not a fan of orange, so I would assume any citrus flavor would be worth trying? Do you think lemon, lime, or grapefruit would be good substitutes for orange?
I’m glad they loved it! Try this cake next time 🙂
This looks scrumpalicious! Can’t wait to try it! If I wanted to make the cake dairy (milk product) free, do you recommend that I could I use a plant based yogurt instead? And for the icing, could I use coconut oi? Thanks for your feedback Monique, can’t wait to try it!
Yes, plant based yogurt will work! Then I suggest using vegan butter to get the right consistency.
What a delicious (and healthy) recipe! I made this cake as muffins (without the frosting) for more of a snack option during the week. I baked them at 350 for 22 minutes (and the recipe yielded 12 large muffins). I also added ½ tsp cinnamon and ¼ tsp ginger because I used vanilla Siggi’s yogurt and wanted to add a bit of that spiced component. Definitely adding this one to the rotation. Thanks Monique and team!
Love that! Perfect snack!
Absolutely delicious gf treat! Simple ingredients and easy to make. Double the icing if you want to cover the sides of the cake. The recipe makes just enough for a light glaze on top.
So glad you enjoyed! The frosting should look like the photos and add a nice layer to the top, but yes, feel free to double if you want more!
It was my first time making this and it was amazing!! I used non-fat greek yogurt and swapped the frosting for a vegan chocolate ganache with orange zest on top and it was delicious! I will definitely be making this over and over again! 🙂