How to Make Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake

Make a mouth-watering Christmas Treat: Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Microwaveable Bundt Cake Pan. I prefer the high impact melamine one I got at a garage sale to the metal ones, but you can use any fluted tube cake pan you like.
• one boxed cake mix, yellow works best
• three eggs
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 3 T canola oil (I have also used olive oil, but not everyone likes the taste)
• one box instant lemon pudding mix
• two cans mandarin oranges, drained (reserve juice for glaze)
• one bag fresh cranberries, rinsed and drained
• zest of one whole lemon (reserve juice for glaze)
• zest of one whole navel orange
• Baked Bundt Cake
• Clean Kitchen Towel
• Plastic baking mat or your favorite serving plate
• Two cups powdered confectioner's sugar
• 1 T juice from mandarin oranges
• 2 T lemon juice

Mixing It Up...

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
   In large mixing bowl, combine cake mix and dry pudding mix, blending evenly.
2. In second mixing bowl, whisk eggs together until frothy yellow. Whisk in heavy cream, stop before mixture forms peaks. Add cranberries, lemon zest, and orange zest.
3. Fold cake mix into egg mixture, stirring gently until all the mix has become wet. Beat 300 strokes by hand or three minutes with hand mixer.
4. Spray fluted tube cake pan with non stick cooking spray. Pour cake mix into tube cake pan. Sprinkle mandarin oranges on top of cake(which will become the bottom when the cake is unmolded).
5. Tap pan on table or counter several times to settle cake and get rid of any air pockets. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for thirty minutes or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.

Unmolding Your Creation...

6. Turn Bundt cake upside down on plastic baking mat or your favorite serving plate. Dampen a kitchen towel with cold water just short of dripping wet. Wring out. Lay towel over Bundt pan, covering as much of the pan as possible. DO NOT TRY TO REMOVE PAN!
   
   Allow pan to sit until towel is no longer cold. Repeat twice more.
   
   Tap Bundt pan all over with butter knife. DO NOT TRY TO REMOVE PAN!
   
   Repeat cold towel treatment.
   
   Tap pan all over one more time. Attempt to remove pan. If cake does not come right out, put pan back on and repeat cold towels and tapping.

The Icing on the Cake...

7. Sift powdered sugar into juice. Mixture will eventually be a thin glaze. If too thick, add more juice a teaspoon at a time. Glaze should drip easily from a spoon.
8. Pour glaze over cake, making sure it covers most of the outside but also getting it on the inside of the center hole.
9. Allow glaze to harden, about an hour or so. Place cake in refrigerator to harden glaze faster.
10. If you like, you can mix together two packages of cranberry gelatine with one cup fresh cranberries and one cup drained mandarin oranges and fill center hole with the gelatine mixture. Let gelatine set for at least two hours in the refrigerator before serving.

Tips & Warnings

• Substitute 1 cup applesauce for eggs for a healthier alternative.
• Another fun alternative: mix two packages cranberry gelatine with fresh cranberries and fill center of cake after it has been baked, cooled, and unmolded.
• Wash and dry all utensils thoroughly before and after use.
• Wash hands after handling raw eggs.
• Wash counters with a 2% bleach solution after contact with raw eggs.
• Do not mix the pudding with milk, it is used dry in this recipe.
• Ignore directions on cake mix box.