Soft, fluffy and moist, this Cranberry Orange Cake is a delicious combination of zesty, sweet flavours and beautiful vibrant color. Made with dried cranberries, this cake it a perfect year round bake.
If you are looking for a beautiful, delicious and easy to make celebration dessert, then how about this cake. A very pretty addition to your table, don’t you think?
I really love baking with berries, but being a seasonal type of plant, it is not available all year, or for that matter, fresh cranberries are not even available in certain countries. So that gives us two options, either frozen or dried.
For this recipe, I am going for dried cranberries, easy to use and available in stores all year.
There is no way that I will be able to get fresh cranberries during this time, so the dried cranberries are going to work out just perfectly.
This cake is truly delicious but the crowning glory is the beautiful buttercream. Studded with tiny little pieces of cranberries, they look like little gems. To get it to look this way, the cranberries are blended with a little icing / powdered sugar to help break it up into little pieces.
The icing / powdered sugar helps to keep the cranberries from sticking to the blades of the blender. It is then folded into the buttercream and used to fill and frost the cake.
MAKING THE CAKE CRANBERRY ORANGE CAKE
Start by tossing the cranberries in a tablespoon of flour and set aside. Coating the dried fruit in the flour will prevent it from sinking to the bottom of the cake while baking. Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C
WET INGREDIENTS :
Then using a large bowl, cream the butter, orange zest, vanilla extract and sugar together. It should be well creamed, so if you are using an electric beater, let it run at least 3 minutes.
Add in eggs, one at a time, and beat for a minute per egg.
Using another bowl, combine the dry ingredients and add it alternately with the buttermilk to the wet ingredients. Mix in the flour-coated cranberries and white chocolate chips.
Grease and flour or line two 8 inch / 20cm round cake pans. Divide the batter between the pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean, without any batter clinging to it.
Remove from the oven and leave in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.
Make sure that the cake is completely cool before frosting.
MAKING THE FROSTING
Add a ¼ cup of dried cranberries and a ¼ cup of icing sugar into a blender and blend/pulse until the cranberries are chopped into small pieces.
Using a beater, cream the butter and icing / powdered sugar until light and creamy. Add in the blended/chopped pieces of cranberries and beat well to combine.
Sandwich and coat the cooled cake with the frosting. Decorate as preferred
This is a really impressive celebration cake or festive bake. Easy to make and just so delicious.
Enjoy ♥
Cranberry Orange Cake
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 1 cup / 225g butter
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 2 ½ Tablespoons orange zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 2 ½ cups / 300g all purpose / cake / plain flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup / 250 ml buttermilk / plain unflavoured yoghurt
- 1 cup / 120g dried cranberries tossed in 1 Tablespoon flour SEE NOTE 1
- ¼ cup / 45 g white chocolate chips
FOR THE FROSTING / ICING
To make the cranberry bits first
- ¼ cup / 25 g cranberries
- ¼ cup / 32g powdered / icing sugar
To cream butter and powdered sugar
- 1 cup / 225 g butter
- 3 cups / 375g powdered / icing sugar
Instructions
MAKING THE CAKE
- Start by tossing the cranberries in a tablespoon of flour and set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C
Wet ingredients :
- Using a large bowl, cream the butter, orange zest , vanilla extract and sugar together. It should be well creamed, so if you are using an electric beater, let it run at least 3 minutes.
- Add in eggs,one at a time, and beat for a minute per egg.
- Using another bowl, combine the dry ingredients and add it alternately with the buttermilk to the wet ingredients. Mix in the flour coated cranberries and white chocolate chips.
- Grease and flour or line two 8 inch / 20cm round cake pans. Divide the batter between the pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean, without any batter clinging to it.
- Remove from the oven and leave in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.
- Make sure that the cake is completely cool before frosting.
MAKING THE FROSTING.
To make the cranberry bits first
- Add a ¼ cup of dried cranberries and a ¼ cup of icing sugar into a blender and blend / pulse until the cranberries are chopped into small pieces.
To cream butter and powdered sugar
- Using a beater, cream the butter and icing / powdered sugar until light and creamy. Add in the blended / chopped pieces of cranberries and beat well to combine sandwich and coat the cooled cake with the frosting. Decorate as preferred
Such a beautiful cake, and perfect for the season. But I can imagine it would be perfect at any time of the year.
I’m drooling over the cake. It looks so soft and fluffy like a boxed version yet completely homemade. Such a pretty festive cake.