A soft, festive cranberry bundt cake! This super soft and simple to make bundt cake is made with cream cheese and buttermilk, is packed with fresh cranberries, and then is drizzled with a white chocolate ganache glaze.
There are only 5 days left until Christmas and I can’t even wrap my head around that right now. 5 days! Are you ready?
I know that I’m not ready for Christmas to be over, I’ve had so much fun preparing for the holiday with so many cookie recipes, (like my sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies, which are going bonkers right now, thank you to everyone who has tried them!), and it’s my favorite time of year to be in the kitchen. January and February may still be snowy and cold, but it’s just not the same without the Christmas tree lit up or Christmas music playing.
For one of my last pre-Christmas recipes this year, I made this beautiful, festive, Cranberry Bundt Cake, packed with bright red cranberries and drizzled with a white chocolate ganache.
I adapted this cranberry bundt cake from my popular coffee cake recipe. I know I’ve talked about that recipe plenty of times before (most recently in my YouTube video!), but this cake base is one of my proudest accomplishments. It took me a long time to find a base that I was happy with, one that was soft and moist, but also stable and dense (as a coffee cake or bundt cake should be), and this one checks all the boxes.
There are a lot of reasons this cake is so soft and irresistible, but I credit it mostly to the fact that I use a whole 8 oz brick of cream cheese in the batter. The texture is also aided by the addition of cornstarch (a staple in nearly all of my baked goods), more brown sugar than white sugar, and buttermilk (I have a simple buttermilk substitute if you don’t keep buttermilk in your fridge)
All of these ingredients come together to give the cake an unbelievable texture and taste. I literally could not stop eating it and wrapped it up for my mom in between bites just to get it out of my house. Addictive.
Enjoy!
I’ll be going Live tomorrow on Facebook at 1:00 EST to make my “Worst” Chocolate Chip Cookies. As usual, I’ll be baking with my little sister, Andi. I hope you’ll stop by and say hi!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened (113g)
- 8 oz cream cheese softened (225g)
- 1 cup light brown sugar tightly packed (200g)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100g)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (335g)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup buttermilk (120ml)
- 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (if using fresh, make sure to rinse and inspect them) (200g)
White Chocolate Glaze
- 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips (255g)
- 1/3 cup heavy cream (80ml)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and lightly grease and flour a bundt pan. Set aside.
- In KitchenAid mixer, or with electric mixer in large bowl, cream together butter and cream cheese.
- Beat in sugars until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined. Scrape down sides and bottom of mixing bowl with rubber spatula.
- Stir in vanilla extract.
- In separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cornstarch and salt.
- Gradually add flour mixture to wet mixture, alternating with buttermilk, until all of the flour mixture and buttermilk have been combined. Batter will be thick.
- Fold in cranberries (do this by hand, as the mixer may squish the berries)
- Evenly spread batter into prepared bundt pan. Bake on 350F (175C) for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake (preferably in a crack) comes out mostly clean with no wet batter.
- Allow cake to cool in the bundt pan for 15 minutes before carefully inverting onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Allow cake to cool completely before adding white chocolate.
White Chocolate Glaze
- Combine heavy cream and white chocolate chips in a small saucepan over low heat.
- Stir frequently until chocolate has melted and mixture is smooth.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes (if you pour it right away the glaze will be extremely thin and will mostly slide right off your cake), stirring occasionally, before pouring over your completely cooled bundt cake.
- Allow glaze to set before cutting and serving.
Gabby Hussey says
Hello Sam, I have already made this delicious Bundt cake and I was a huge success specially with my husband (which is a lot to say as he’s extremely picky) anyway, since I loved how soft and moist this cake turned out to be, on my second cake I used this identical recipe but instead of cranberries I added 200gr of blueberries along with zest of 2 lemons.. also came out PERFECT. Now, my question is, I don’t have cream cheese in my fridge all the time and going to the shop last minute can be difficult, is there any advice you can offer? If I omit the cream cheese would it make a huge difference? Thank you in advance for your help.
Greetings from London UK.
Sugar Spun Run says
Hello, Gabby! I am so happy that the Cranberry Bundt Cake has been such a hit in your home. I love the substitution of blueberries and lemon zest. What a wonderful flavor combo! I personally have not tried it, but others have substituted the cream cheese with plain yogurt. The ratio is 1:1. If you try it, let me know how it works for you. The cream cheese really helps make this cake soft and moist so I recommend adding it in. I hope this helps! Happy Baking. 🙂
Annette says
This looks delicious. I have fresh cranberries I put in the freezer. Do I need to thaw them before adding them to the batter?
Sam says
Nope! You can add them frozen. I hope you love the cake! 🙂
Terri says
Hi Sam thank you for the recipe. Could I use almond extract instead?
Sam says
Sure! It would alter the taste a bit and almond extract is fairly strong so I’d start by using about half the amount of almond extract as you would vanilla and going from there. I hope that helps!