Cranberry Coffee Cake

When I was home for the holidays this year, my mom and I dug around in some old cookbooks for some older recipes to try. We're not sure where this recipe came from, and we modified a lot of it anyway, but the general idea was a coffee cake made with cranberry sauce. I made the cranberry sauce with orange juice to keep it light for the cake. The sauce needs to be made in advance, but it only takes about 30 minutes to do. The rest of the cake comes together quickly and bakes for a little less than an hour. It was delicious! The cake was moist, and the cranberry sauce was nice and thick. We added walnuts to the recipe and they paired perfectly with the cranberries. To top it all off, the cake was beautiful. The cranberry sauce is visible on the top of the cake, as you can see in the picture, which makes it especially festive-looking this time of year!

RECIPE: Cranberry Coffee Cake

INGREDIENTS:
Cranberry Sauce:
1 bag cranberries
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sugar

Cake:
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
zest of one orange (optional)
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 ounces sour cream, room temperature
1/2 cup toasted walnuts

DIRECTIONS:
Cranberry Sauce:
*This recipe makes more than needed for the cake, so if you don't want leftover cranberry sauce you could halve the recipe. (But keep in mind bags of fresh cranberries only come in one size)

In a medium pot, simmer dried cranberries in 1 cup of orange juice for about 5 minutes, until cranberries soften. Add fresh cranberries and 1/4 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, until cranberries start to pop and the juice has reduced by about half. Remove from heat. If not using right away, store cranberry sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Coffee Cake:
Preheat oven to 325F. Spray or lightly grease an angel food pan. (If you don't have an angle food pan, you could use a cake pan or a loaf pan).


In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. On low speed, add eggs one at a time and beat each until combined. Add orange zest and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture and the sour cream to the batter on low speed in this order: 1/3 flour mixture, 1/2 sour cream, 1/3 flour, 1/2 sour cream, 1/3 flour. Beat each addition just enough to combine before adding the next.

Pour 1/2 of the batter into your prepared pan. Spoon about 1/2 cup cranberry sauce over the batter, and sprinkle 1/4 cup walnuts over the sauce. Repeat with the rest of the batter, another 1/2 cup cranberry sauce, and 1/4 cup walnuts. Bake at 325 for 55 minutes, or until cake is starting to brown and a toothpick comes out clean after sticking into center of cake. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes. If using an angle food pan, remove the cake from the pan. If you're not eating the cake right away, cool to room temperature, then wrap in plastic and store at room temperature.