Recipe :: Cranberry Orange Cake

This Cranberry Orange Cake may be my new favorite. It is definitely my favorite for now.

I used to not like cranberries. I think they are one of those things that you have to grow into. But now, they are one of the things I look forward to the most as far as holiday food.

I first made something similar that was called a cranberry pie, but it stuck to the pie dish, I wasn’t crazy about the flavor, and I felt it could use more cranberries. So, I looked around at several other recipes, and after making it a couple of times, came up with the recipe below. It is perfect.

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups of flour (+ a couple of Ts for preparing pan)
1 1/ teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 large orange (or two small)
3/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
3 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen)
Glaze:
1 – 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3-4 Tablespoons of liquid: milk or orange juice

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350.
2. Prepare Bundt pan by greasing and flouring pan.
3. Zest and juice the orange. (Should yield about 1 tablespoon of zest and 1/3 cup of orange juice.)
4. Sift first four dry ingredients.
5. With a standing mixer, cream butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time.
6. Add half the flour mixture, then sour cream, then the remainder of the flour, making sure the batter is well combined between each step.
7. Add orange zest, almond extract and orange juice. Scrape the sides of the bowl if necessary and make sure all is well combined.
8. Mix in cranberries by hand.
9. Pour into bundt pan and cook at 350 for 55 minutes.
10. Let the cake cool for 20-30 minutes before turning over to release from pan.
11. To glaze, mix powdered sugar with liquid and pour over cake.