Is there anything more festive than cranberries? These tart beautiful berries feel like deep red ornaments in a moist bundt cake fragranced with fruity olive oil and vibrant zesty blood orange, along with the traditional holiday flavors of cinnamon and clove. The addition of buttermilk ensures a soft tender crumb, which is the ideal host for the bursts of tangy freshness from the cranberries. The recipe by Sonoma Farm, featuring their Blood Orange Infused Olive Oil, calls for a 9" bundt cake pan but we adore this holiday dessert as individual cakes. Believe us, everyone will want their own!
We have tried a few variations over the years that we want to share. First, we always add more cranberries. For us, the berries are the best part and so we add as many as the batter will allow. We've also tried reducing the sugar quantity slightly and replacing fresh cranberries with dried cranberries rehydrated in dessert wine; the result is a completely different flavour profile but it's to die for! Some of our kids like these bundt cakes drizzled in local honey, but, for adult palettes, we find topping the cakes with a cranberry coulis, a cooked nut glaze with walnuts, hazelnuts, and pecans, slices of fresh pears soaked in grapefruit or blood orange liqueur, a dollop of Devonshire cream, or even a light brushing with olive oil and the zest of oranges to be most successful way to serve this phenomenal cake.
We are not sponsored by Sonoma Farm so we have no issue noting that if you don't have Blood Orange Infused Olive Oil, you can absolutely substitute a good quality olive oil and add blood orange zest, or you can infuse your own olive oil. There are two primary methods to infuse olive oil. The first involves blending the oil with blood orange peels into a smooth slurry, then straining to remove the solids. In the second—a more involved process—blend olive oil with blood orange segments and water in a food processor to produce a slurry. Leave the slurry in the food processor and pulse every 5 minutes for an hour, then transfer the mixture to a large glass jar or pitcher and leave out until the mixture separates into three distinctive layers (the oil will rise and the solids will sink, with a layer of water separating the two). Gently transfer the jar to the refrigerator to encourage the oil to solidify, making it easier to remove the now perfectly infused olive oil! (1)
By Sonoma Farms
Ingredients:
-6 egg whites -2 cups white sugar -1 cup Sonoma Farm Blood Orange Infused Extra Virgin Olive Oil -2 cups all-purpose flour -1 teaspoon baking soda -1 teaspoon salt –3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon -3/4 teaspoon ground cloves -1 cup buttermilk -1 cup chopped cranberries
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a 9 inch Bundt pan with cooking spray, and dust with flour.
In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Beat in the sugar until fluffy. Mix in the blood orange infused olive oil.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves. Alternately mix the egg white mixture and the buttermilk into the flour mixture until smooth. Fold in the cranberries. Transfer the mixture to the prepared Bundt pan.
Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean. Sonoma Farm