Cinnamon and cranberry bundt

This is a Good Cake: the sponge is soft, heady with spice and a warming hint of orange, with pockets of sherbet-y sweetness from the cranberries that pepper it throughout.

Cinnamon and cranberry bundt. Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing / Skye McAlpine

• serves

  8-10

• prep

  20 minutes

• cook

  1:10 hour

• difficulty

  Mid

Ingredients

• 110 g salted butter, plus more (optional) for the tin
• 50ml sunflower oil, plus more (optional) for the tin
• 2 eggs
• 270 g caster sugar
• 150 g plain yoghurt
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 240 g self-raising flour, plus 1½ tsp extra, for dusting
• 2 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
• Generous pinch of fine sea salt
• 130 g frozen cranberries

Glaze

• 40 ml water
• 30 g caster sugar, plus more (optional) to dust
• 70 g frozen cranberries
• 260 g icing sugar, plus more if needed
• Juice of 1 orange, plus more if needed

Cooling time: 2 hours

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 180˚C (160˚C fan-forced / Gas 4). Lightly butter or oil a 1.2-litre nonstick bundt tin (see Note).
2. Gently melt the 110 g butter in a small saucepan over a medium heat: once liquid, take off the heat and set aside to cool.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and the sugar together until they become fluffy and pale in colour. Add the 50 ml oil in a steady trickle, beating constantly, until well combined. Now gradually beat in the cooled melted butter, then, lastly, beat in the yoghurt and orange zest.
4. In a separate bowl, sift the 240 g flour, the cinnamon and salt and stir to combine evenly, then fold into the cake mixture. Lastly, dust the cranberries with the extra flour, then gently fold them through the cake batter.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 60–70 minutes. After 30 minutes, cover the tin with foil, to stop the cake from browning too much. To test if the cake is ready, insert a knife into the middle and see if it comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes in the tin (if you turn it out too soon it risks collapsing), then turn out on to a wire rack and let cool completely.
6. Meanwhile, prepare the glazed cranberries. In a medium saucepan, combine the measured water with the 30 g caster sugar. Set over a medium heat, bring to the boil, then let simmer for 2–3 minutes until you have a clear, syrupy liquid. Stir in the cranberries to fully coat in the syrup, then remove from the heat. Gently lift the red berries out of the syrup, using a slotted spoon (or very gently lifting them up using a fork) and transfer to a wire rack to dry out (roughly 1 hour). This gives the berries a lovely gloss and also helps sweeten their sharp taste. At this point, if you like, you can roll some of the cranberries in a little caster sugar on a small plate to get a frosted effect.
7. Once the cake is completely cooled, you can make the icing: sift the icing sugar into a mixing bowl, then add the orange juice, a little at a time, stirring until smooth each time and checking the consistency as you go: you want a thick, pourable icing. You can add more juice to thin it out, or more icing sugar to thicken it up, as needed. Drizzle the icing over the cooled bundt and top with the glazed and/or frosted cranberries.

Notes

• This cake is not overly sweet, which makes it a good breakfast choice, especially if you’re the kind of person who is partial to cake for breakfast (which I am). Equally, once dressed up in a thin layer of orange-scented icing and topped with shimmering cranberries, this cake takes on a character that is fancy enough for afternoon tea, or after a festive meal. I also quite often make this for bake sales and sell it by the slice: it slices nicely. Like I said: it’s a good cake.
• Much as I love the extravagant-looking confections which they turn out, I often find bundt tins a little problematic to work with, as I’m rather too haphazard in the way I cook to properly grease and dust all the nooks and crannies. The best way round this that I’ve found is to use a silicone bundt mould and grease it very lightly with butter or oil (a haphazard job is just fine here) before pouring in the cake batter: this makes it easier to turn the cake out than from a regular tin. Two caveats: always wait a good twenty minutes before turning out the cake, as if it’s too warm it can be prone to collapsing; and set the mould on a baking tray before you add the batter, so it’s easier to move in and out of the oven without spilling or upsetting the batter in the jiggly-wiggly silicone.
• Lastly, a note on decoration: I like a mix of frosted and glazed cranberries here, just scattered over the crest of the iced cake, which gives a lovely contrast of textures and shades of festive red. If you’re in a hurry, just dip the berries in the sugar syrup to give them a nice, sweet gloss, then scatter over the cake.

This is an edited extract from The Christmas Companion by Skye McAlpine (Bloomsbury Publishing, $55.00).

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.