Best Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake Recipe

Use your leftover cranberry sauce to make this brightly flavored, moist Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake. It’s sure to be a hit at your holiday dinner.

 

​Cooking and Baking with Holiday Leftovers

The holiday season is a special time of year and I love cooking and baking throughout each of the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, you name it!). And, without fail, I end up with leftovers. So, I am always looking for ways to repurpose these leftovers into something new and interesting. 

After one Thanksgiving holiday, I ended up with leftover homemade cranberry sauce. It was made with fresh cranberries and was so good, I didn’t want to let it go.

I really like to pair cranberries with other fruits, vegetables and herbs. I have recipes where I’ve done a combination of cranberries with apples, raspberries, rosemary, leeks – even barbecue sauce! Cranberries are so versatile.

As we were headed into the Christmas season, I thought I might make a cranberry Christmas cake. But, knowing I like to pair cranberry flavors with other flavors, in my mind I still didn’t have the perfect cake.

So, as I often do for inspiration, I took an inventory of my pantry, freezer and fridge to see what I had on hand. As we happened to have made some Jameson Old Fashioneds earlier in the week and needed an orange peel for each, we had oranges available.

Now, I love using fruit zests in recipes. Lime zest, lemon zest, orange zest are all great additions to food and drink recipes. In this case, I thought both the fresh orange juice and the orange zest from my leftover oranges would make an excellent combination with the cranberry flavors. 

So, cranberry orange cake it is! But what kind of cake?

Bundt Cakes versus Pound Cakes

Do I make a cranberry orange pound cake? Should this be a cranberry orange bundt cake? Is there even a difference?

Traditionally, bundt cakes are any cakes baked in a bundt pan and a pound cake uses a loaf pan. And, pound cakes came by the name honestly as they traditionally had a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. It made for a dense cake!

While I don’t use pounds of butter, sugar, eggs and flour, my pound cakes are typically denser than let’s say a traditional chocolate or vanilla cake. So, I call them pound cakes. But, I really like the way bundt cakes look, so I tend to bake a lot of my pound cakes in a bundt pan. 

I think a bundt pan makes a beautiful cake and it looks great on the Christmas table (or any ocassion).

So, cranberry orange pound cake it is!

​Enhancing a Simple Glaze

I also started thinking about the glaze. I think you absolutely have to have a glaze on pound cakes and bundt cakes. It adds so much!

A simple glaze is often made with powdered sugar and milk. I thought that was a bit too boring for this cranberry orange pound cake. It would be much more interesting to bring in the cranberry flavors not only into the cake, but also into the glaze.

While I did have the leftover homemade cranberry sauce, that was too thick for the simple glaze. So, I decided to substitute cranberry juice for milk.

The combination of the powdered sugar and the cranberry juice is so good. Drizzle that over the top of the cake and you have the perfect glaze for the cranberry orange pound cake!

All Purpose Flour versus Cake Flour

My Lime Pound Cake was the first time I used cake flour instead of all purpose flour. It was purely by accident that I used cake flour. When I went to bake that cake, I discovered that I didn’t have enough all-purpose flour, but I did have cake flour, so that’s what I used. 

I really love how a pound cake turns out using the cake flour. It still has the dense texture that a good pound cake should have, but I feel like you get a buttery crumb texture that is more delicate than a traditional pound cake.

I really can go either way (all-purpose flour or cake flour) and I use both in my pound cake recipes (see below for links). It’s really a matter of what you like and what you have available. No matter the flour, they both taste great!

Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake

You won’t go wrong with this Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake on your Christmas table as it’s the perfect cake for the occasion. Your friends and family will definitely have a Merry Christmas digging into this delicious dessert!

Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks for Making Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake

• Allow your butter to come to room temperature before you start. This will make it much easier to cream the butter and sugar together to make your final butter mixture.
• It’s important that the eggs are well beaten into the butter mixture. There should be no lumps.
• Sifting the dry ingredients together will insure that they’re uniformly mixed into the cake batter.
• Make sure to gently stir the cranberry sauce into the batter.
• Even if your pan is non-stick, you’re still going to want to butter and flour your pan. This will insure that the cake batter won’t stick.
• While you can mix this cake by hand, I wouldn’t recommend that. You’ll end up with a more consistent cake batter using a hand mixer or a stand-up electric mixer.
• The cake turns out perfectly by starting it in a cold oven and letting it heat up gradually to 325 degrees.
• Cool the pound cake in the bundt pan for 15 minutes to insure that it comes out of the bundt pan in one piece. If the cake is too hot, you risk it breaking apart when you invert it onto a cake plate or wire rack.
• It’s important to stir the cranberry juice just a little at a time into the powdered sugar to make the glaze. It can quickly go from the right consistency to being too runny. 
• The cake freezes very well if you want to make it ahead of time.

Ingredients Needed for Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake

Full instructions can be found below in the recipe card

• Unsalted butter
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla
• Fresh orange juice
• Orange zest
• Cake flour
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Whole milk
• Cranberry sauce
• Powdered sugar
• Cranberry juice

How to Make Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake

• Start by preparing your bundt pan by coating with non-stick spray and flour.
• Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs one at a time.
• Beat in vanilla, fresh orange juice and orange zest.
• Combine your dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
• Alternate beating some of the the flour mixture and the milk into the butter mixture making sure you start and end with the flour mixture.
• Stir in cranberry sauce.
• Pour batter into prepared bundt pan.
• Place pan in a cold oven and set temperature to 350 degrees.
• Bake for 60-70 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
• Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes.
• Gently run a knife around the pan, place a plate over the pan and invert to release the cake from the pan.
• Make the simple glaze and drizzle over the cake once it’s completely cooled and at room temperature.

How to Freeze Cranberry Orange Christmas Pound Cake for Later

• Let the cake cool completely. Putting it on a wire rack (cooling rack) will help move this process along.
• Do not glaze before freezing. You’ll want to add that after the cake has been defrosted.
• You can freeze the entire pound cake or individual slices.
• For best results, wrap tightly first with plastic wrap and then with aluminum foil.
• Freeze for up to 3 months.
• When ready to eat, defrost completely and then drizzle with the cranberry glaze.

More Pound Cakes to Make and Enjoy

• Eggnog Pound Cake
• Death by Chocolate Pound Cake
• Lemon Cream Cheese Bundt Cake
• Raspberry Swirl Pound Cake
• Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake

ENJOY!