Orange Cranberry Cake

Orange Cranberry Cake - this vintage cake recipe perfect for the holidays! Made from scratch and loaded with dried cranberries, orange zest, and pecans. Makes a great homemade gift too! Butter, sugar, eggs, flour, buttermilk, baking soda, salt, pecans, dried cranberries, and orange zest. Top the warm cake with a quick orange glaze and cool. Can substitute chopped dates for the cranberries. This cake is seriously DELICIOUS!

Vintage Orange Cranberry Cake with Orange Glaze

This recipe is from a Plain Chicken reader. This recipe was given to her mother in 1944 by a lady who said it had been in her family for as long as she could remember. Don't you just LOVE vintage recipes?!? I was SO excited to give the recipe a try. I whipped this up last week and it was WONDERFUL! This will definitely be on our holiday dinner table. It would also make a great homemade holiday gift.

How to Make Orange Cranberry Cake from Scratch

This Orange Cranberry Cake is very easy to make. Start with mixing together butter and sugar in a stand mixer. Next, add the eggs. Make sure to mix well after each egg and scrape down the bowl. After adding the eggs, add the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the mixture. Finally, stir in some pecans, dried cranberries, and orange zest. Pour the batter into a tube pan and bake. Once the cake is done, you are going to pour a quick orange glaze over the warm cake and let the cake stay in the pan overnight before serving.

The original recipe used chopped dates instead of dried cranberries. I think the cake would be delicious with chopped dates. Let me know if you give it a try!

Tips for Making Orange Cranberry Cake from Scratch:

Have all ingredients at room temperature including buttermilk and eggs
Use a KitchenAid stand mixer for easy preparation
Use a Microplane zester to zest the oranges
Grease and flour a 16-cup 10-inch tube pan; can also use cooking spray with flour
If you use a Bundt Pan instead of a tube pan, you may have leftover batter. Leave at least an inch of the pan unfilled so the cake can expand when baking.
Can bake the cake in loaf pans or mini loaf pans for gift giving.