Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you click on the link and make a purchase.
This Cranberry Cake is a studded pound cake with flavors of orange and poppy seeds. The glaze is made with simmering cranberries that adds a lovely sweetness and pretty color. I love to serve this as dessert alongside this endive salad and pumpkin alla vodka for the perfect fall or winter dinner.
A Different Type of Pound Cake
Traditional pound cakes use a pound of flour, pound of butter and pound of sugar. This recipe is inspired by my vanilla bean pound cake with pomegranate glaze. All the same ratios with little to zero leavening. I love a classic, dense pound cake–so good! But this one is a bit different. It uses slightly different ratios and some leavening to make it not as dense as the original.
Ingredients for this Cranberry Cake
- Fresh cranberries – This cake is perfect if you have leftover fresh cranberries from making cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving.
- Poppy seeds – These add a delicious texture to this cake.
- Orange zest – I love to rub the orange zest with the sugar to bring out the maximum amount of flavor from the orange.
- Eggs – This adds a delicious crumb and lightness to this cake.
For the rest of the ingredients, see the recipe card below!
How to Make this Cranberry Cake
- Combine the chopped cranberries with flour. This batter is thick but this will help even more with eliminating the possibility of cranberries sinking to the bottom.
- Whisk together the flour, poppy seeds, baking powder and salt.
- Then in a stand-up mixer or you could even use a large bowl with a hand electric mixer, combine the sugar and orange zest. Press the zest into the sugar with your fingers. This will bring out the flavors in the orange zest.
- Add the room temperature butter and vanilla to the bowl with the sugar and beat it until combined and fluffy.
- Crack in one egg at a time, mixing after you add each egg.
- Rotate between the milk and flour mixture. And then fold in the cranberries.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour and 5 minutes. This may seem like a long time but pound cakes do take a while. A skewer should come out clean when it’s done.
- Make the glaze by simmering some cranberries with sugar, vanilla and salt. And then straining it so you end up with a puree.
- Add the puree to some powdered sugar and whisk it until smooth. Pour it on top of the cooled cake and slice it up and serve!
Tips and Tricks
- Using leftover cranberry sauce – If you want to use cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving, feel free to do that. Just add more water to it and simmer it until it turns into a thinner syrup. Strain it and use that for the glaze on top.
- Poppy seeds – If you don’t have poppy seeds, simply leave them out.
- Swapping out the orange zest – If you want, you can use lemon zest.
Recipe FAQs
After it cools, I like to wrap it in plastic wrap. It may mess up the glaze a bit but that’s ok. It’ll still taste moist.
Make sure all of the ingredients are room temperature: the butter, the eggs and the milk.
Fill a bowl with warm water. Add the eggs to the bowl and let them sit for 5 minutes. Change the water after 2 minutes and re-fill with warm water. This will bring the eggs quickly to room temp.
More Fall Favorites:
- Cranberry Sauce
- Cranberry Thyme Gin and Tonic
- Apple Cranberry Pie
- Cranberry Chestnut Cake
- Apple Cheese Danish
- Chai Apple Skillet Cake
If you tried this Cranberry Cake Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Cranberry Cake
Equipment
- 1 (8×4-inch) loaf pan
- 2 bowls
- 1 stand-up mixer or electric hand mixer
- 1 spatula
Ingredients
Cranberry Cake Batter:
- 1/2 cup fresh cranberries, chopped and tossed with 1 tablespoon flour
- 2 cups all-purpose flour , (240g)
- 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 1/4 cups white granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons orange zest, (from 1 orange)
- 1 cup unsalted butter , at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1/3 cup milk
Glaze:
- 1/2 cup cranberries
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch kosher salt
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
To Make the Cranberry Cake Batter:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 8×4-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. I also like to line the bottom of a loaf pan with parchment and allowing the ends to run up the sides. I find this easiest when I want to remove the loaf. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine the chopped cranberries with the flour and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, poppy seeds, salt and baking powder. Set aside.
- In the bowl of stand-up mixer, add the sugar and orange zest. Rub the orange zest into the sugar, mixing it vigorously with your hands. This will bloom the orange zest flavors and oils.
- Add the softened butter and vanilla extract to the bowl with the sugar. With the paddle attachment on the mixer, beat for about 5 minutes, until pale in color. Mix in one egg at a time, being sure each egg is incorporated before adding another.
- Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Pour in the cranberries and fold them in.
- Pour the pound cake batter into the prepared 8×4-inch loaf pan and smooth out the top so it's nice and flat.
- Transfer to the oven to bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then invert onto a cooling rack.
To Make the Cranberry Glaze:
- In a small saucepan, set over medium-low heat, add the cranberries, along with the water, sugar, vanilla and salt. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add a small sieve over a small bowl and pour the cranberry mixture into the sieve, pressing it until all the juice is released. You should end up with about 3 tablespoons.
- Sift the powdered sugar into a medium bowl. Pour 1 tablespoon of the cranberry mixture and mix, adding more tablespoons until you end up with a thick but pourable glaze. I ended up using 2 whole tablespoons.
- Pour the glaze over the cooled pound cake and slice and serve.
Notes
- This cake tastes wonderful without the glaze so I say it’s 100% optional!Â
- Wrap this cake in plastic wrap and store at room temperature on the kitchen counter. Lasts up to 3 days.Â
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This cake is amazing! So festive and pretty for the holidays. Would make for a really nice gift. The only change I made was starting the cake in a cold oven instead of preheating. Once the cake was in I turned the oven on to 325. This is how my grandma always made pound cakes (no idea why)!
“Lasts up to 3 days. ”
Want to bet?? MAYBE 24 hours……
Only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is the caloric content….but then, who cares??
amazing pound cake recipe with the perfect amount of orange! At first I wasn’t sure if I added enough cranberries to the batter but the glaze definitely amplified the cranberry flavor!
love hearing this!
I only have self rising flour, due to the pandemic. Do you think I can get away with using it instead of all purpose? If not, what other flours do you think I could use? I have gluten free, whole wheat pastry, regular WW. I really want to make this! I have left over cranberries from thanksgiving
sorry not sure. when i make recipes i only test them the way that is written. i can’t recommend substitutions because i haven’t personally tried it.
Can this cake be made without the poppy seeds?
I can’t see why not!
Delicious recipe but 300* is definitely not the right temperature. Cake was still a gooey mess after 70 min at 300*. Ended up baking an extra 20 min, then turned to 325* for another 15 min to get it to set. I wish I’d read through the comments before I started!
Can I use dried cranberries?
i don’t think that’ll work because you won’t be able to get the glaze right. the cake itself will probably work with them. report back if you do try it!
DEFINITELY BAKE AT 325! A delicious recipe, but 300 degrees was not enough to cook my cake all the way through. I’ve never seen a pound cake recipe baked at 300 but followed the recipe anyway step by step. Left with a gooey center after over an hour. I would definitely suggest baking at 325 degrees. I also didn’t get enough juice from my cranberries so I used 1 cup of berries and added a bit of water to the pot. Overall, a wonderfully flavored pound cake recipe. Very fresh!
DANG this is bumming me out. it looks like i’m going to have to retest this because i baked it at 300 and it worked for me UGH. maybe it didn’t or took longer? sorry!
This was delicious but I completely agree! Mine was totally raw in the middle after an hour at 300, I ended up doing like 10-15 more and then upped the temp to 325 for another 15 and then it was finally done. I definitely will make it again but will definitely start at 325 🙂
Is the oven temperature correct in the recipe? Should the loaf be baked at 325 instead of 300? I have 2 in the oven and they are still very wet at 65 min.
it’s correct! how did it turn out? usually pound cakes are baked at lower temperatures.
The cake tasted great. I turned up the heat to 325 to finish but it took much longer than 60-65 min. I bake about 35 pound cakes for Christmas presents each year and use 325. I also had to add water to the cranberries to get any juice – but maybe my cranberries were just not juicy. The cake was a hit and I just made another one and baked at the higher temp. Great recipe.
I also had the same thing happen to me! I ended up setting the temp. to 325 and it turned out fine. I loved this recipe
How festive! Could frozen cranberries work? I can’t always find fresh ones at the store.
I haven’t tried it with frozen. I feel like they would perhaps leech out too much water? You should be able to find cranberries right now at any grocery store. They’re pretty readily available this time of year!
I use frozen cranberries in cakes all the time…if you leave them whole, they won’t leach out any liquid!