Cinnamon Orange Cranberry Swirl Coffee Cake

This recipe is a take off on my Mom’s Cranberry Swirl Coffee Cake–a Sue Lufkin classic recipe!

You can add nuts if you want to the filling and sprinkle some on top but I have too many nut allergy people in my life to do this.    If you don’t feel like making the candied orange zest, then don’t.  Replace the orange zest with toasted walnuts, change the name and presto–new cake!

I baked the cake in the photo in a Nordic Ware Fleur De Lis bundt cake pan but any 8″ tube pan will work.  I also only did one layer of the cranberry/orange mixture as you will see in the photo at the end of the recipe.   Enjoy!

Yummy—Cinnamon Orange Cranberry Swirl Coffee Cake

For the cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoons fresh orange zest
1 cup sour cream
1 cup whole berry cranberry sauce, stirred
1/3 cup candied orange peel  (directions to follow)
¼ cup sweetened dried cranberries

For the glaze:

¾ cup confectioners’ sugar
1-2 tablespoons orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees,  Grease and flour an 8” tube pan or a 9-12 cup bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Reduce mixer speed to low and beat in dry ingredients a little at a time, alternating with the sour cream.

Stir together  all but 1 tablespoon orange zest with the cranberry sauce and set aside.

Place 1/3  of the batter in the prepared pan.  Spread half of the cranberry and orange mixture over the batter and swirl with knife.  Reepeat with remaining batter and  cranberry mixture, ending with the batter.  Smooth top of the cake and bake in preheated oven for 45-55 minutes until cake tester comes out clean.

Cool cake in pan 10 minutes and turn out on to serving plate t cool completely.  When cake is cool, whisk together confectioners’ sugar and orange juice.  Drizzle over cake and sprinkle cake with remaining chopped candied orange zest and dried cranberries.

For the zest:

*you can make less of this if you want to but you might as well make a bunch of it all at once.  Keeps for months in the sugar and is great on and in baked goods .  Also fun on the edge of a martini glass.

4 cups granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
2 ½ cups water
3 oranges, peeled, and as much pith removed from the peel as possible, cut into ¼” strips

In a small sauce pan, bring the sugar and water to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  Remove from heat.

In another pan, place zest and cover with additional water.  Bring to a boil, strain and repeat two more times.  Dry the pan, pour the sugar syrup over the blanched zest and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and allow to cook until the zest is tender and translucent.  Allow to cool slightly and remove to a cooling rack. When cool, toss in additional sugar.  Put some of the sugar in an airtight container and store in a cool dry place till ready to use.

*Keep the drained syrup and store in the refrigerator–it is orange spiked at this point and excellent to sweeten cocktails or brush on layers of cake to keep them moist before frosting.

As always, feel free to ask my any questions you might have about this or any of my recipes.