Orange-Cranberry Bundt Cake

This orange-cranberry Bundt cake from the Vanilla Bean Baking Book is so refreshingly tart and light, I highly recommend making it the next time you make dessert! I brought it into group meeting this morning and people went crazy for it. Ordinarily everyone's pretty gracious about whatever I bring in, but this cake was different. Several people asked for seconds.... large slices of seconds. Even though a slice feels hefty on a plate, the cake itself isn't heavy at all. It's easy to eat several slices throughout the day (I know because I did). The power trio of cranberries (I used frozen), lemon juice, and orange zest/juice/liqueur results in an extraordinarily bright-tasting cake. By itself the cake is not very sweet, so although the glaze is quite sweet, together they work perfectly.

This is one of the few cookbooks I've used that's actually accurate with the grams vs cups amounts for sugar. The two tend to be pretty dissimilar in a lot of other recipes. I didn't have any difficulty making this recipe, until I forgot where I was with the flour additions and couldn't remember whether I'd already added the third round of flour because I'd been lazy and hadn't pre-whisked my flour, baking soda, and salt together. Luckily I guessed right, but let my memory gap be a lesson to you. Follow the directions and do measure out the flour mixture instead of measuring it out in thirds.

Sarah's orange-cranberry Bundt cake recipe makes a very thick batter, so getting the cranberries folded in and well-distributed required a little extra attention. Before you pour the batter in, verify with yourself that you've really greased the Bundt pan well - this batter is quite prone to sticking.

I baked my Bundt for 63 minutes and then removed it because it had started to smell done about 5-10 minutes previously, the top was getting quite browned (I didn't use the foil trick), and a wooden toothpick came out clean with a crumb on it. After letting it cool in the pan and then cool in the rack (after a few nervous minutes figuring out how to get it unstuck), then glazing the cake, I held my breath and cut into it. Perfectly done, hurrah! ... except, that wasn't entirely true. Once I cut a few more slices for people I discovered there were some areas that were just past the precipice of being underbaked. I think my cake could have used at least another 5 minutes if not another 10. Based on experience with Bundt cakes and my oven, I'm guessing 70 minutes would have been a better time. It should be soft and moist, like a yogurt cake, but not quite to the extent mine was. Still, since people gushed about it in this state, imagine how much better it could be cooked a few minutes longer.

Despite some of my misgivings about this book (like the number of repeated recipes from the blog, including 7/9 of the no-churn ice-creams), the success of this orange-cranberry Bundt cake is forcing me to reconsider my attitude and bake a lot more. There's plenty here that isn't a no-churn ice cream and it's winter anyway.

Orange-Cranberry Bundt Cake

A light and refreshing Bundt cake, great for Fall get-togethers but perfect for any occasion (breakfast, tea-time, birthdays, Sunday dinner, brunch, rainy days).

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 35 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 45 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 slices

Ingredients

Cake

• 3 cups (426 g) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ¾ pound (3 sticks, 226 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 ¼ cups (446 g) sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated orange zest from about 2 small navel oranges
• 5 large eggs at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier Triple Sec, or other orange liqueur (optional)
• ¼ cup fresh orange juice from about 2 small navel oranges
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice from about 1 small lemon
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• 2 rounded cups (227 g) cranberries fresh or frozen

Glaze

• 1 ½ cups (170 g) confectioner's sugar
• 2-4 tablespoons milk
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch salt

Instructions

Cake

• Put the oven rack you will use in the middle/lower-middle position. Preheat the oven to 325 F and grease your Bundt pan very well.
• Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
• Cream the butter at medium speed for 1-2 minutes. Add the sugar and orange zest, continue beating at medium speed until fluffy and lighter in color, about 3 minutes.
• Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition is fully incorporated. Add the orange liqueur and vanilla extract, mix at low speed until combined.
• The flour and liquids will be added in three stages. After each addition, mix on low until barely incorporated. Add one-third of the flour mixture, mix, then add the orange and lemon juices, mix. Add half the remaining flour mixture, mixing until barely incorporated again, then add the heavy cream and beat on low. Finally add the last of the flour, mix until just incorporated. The batter will be quite thick.
• Sprinkle in the cranberries and fold in to distribute evenly.
• Pour/scoop the batter into the prepared Bundt pan, place on the adjusted rack, and bake 60-75 minutes. After 40 minutes of baking, rotate the cake 180 and cover the top with foil to protect from over-browning. A wooden skewer or toothpick should come out of the center with the slightest bit of crumb, but it may not be quite done.
• Cool the cake on a wire rack for 25-30 minutes, then invert onto the rack and finish cooling.
• Place on serving platter.

Glaze

• Whisk together the confectioner's sugar, salt, vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of milk. If glaze is too thick to pour, add increments of ½-1 tablespoons of milk to thin slightly.
• Drizzle over the fully cooled cake and (ideally) let the glaze set at least 1 hour before serving. Serve