This Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cake recipe is no doubt a new favorite – especially for Christmas! The cake is incredibly moist and flavorful and the cranberries add the prefect burst of fruity flavor.
This weekend was crazy busy, but so fun! We finally started turning our “formal living room” into my office. We’d already cleared the room, so this weekend we steam cleaned the carpets and got the main pieces of furniture. I still want to get a few other things and some decorative pieces, but the big stuff is there and I’m ready to get organized!
We got the furniture at IKEA and I love it! It took us forever to get through the store though. I got three pieces of furniture – a desk, shelves for all my props, and a table to use for taking photos on. It took awhile to pick everything out since IKEA has all these things in different rooms. I was taking a lot of pictures and trying to picture them all in a room together.
The hubs didn’t really realize IKEA was so big and had so much stuff, so he was pretty excited to realize they had so many decorative things and stuff beyond just furniture. I think we’ll be making another trip soon.
If you’ve been before, you know you collect the boxes at the end of the trek through the store. One of our items – the table – was back where only IKEA employees could get to it so after we checked out, we had to wait at the pick up area for it. It took longer than we expected though, so the hubs started wondering around near the food. Next thing I knew, he came back with ICEEs and cinnamon rolls. ICEEs are one of his all-time faves.
“The cinnamon rolls had just come out of the oven and were only $1,” he said.
Oh, how well he knows me. Besides, it’d been so long it was dinner time and we were hungry. Those cinnamon rolls didn’t last 30 seconds. And they were good too. So fluffy!
Kind of like this cake. 🙂
How To Make This White Chocolate Cake
The cake itself is a little modification of my vanilla cupcakes, doubled. Dang is it good. It is so moist and the flavor is to die for. I love that it’s one bowl and everything just gets mixed together. One note about the mixing – you don’t want to over mix the batter. Once everything is combined, you only want to mix until it’s smooth. No longer.
The cranberries get stirred in after the mixing. This was my first time ever baking, or even tasting, fresh cranberries. I didn’t realize they were so tart! But baked into the lightly dense cake, they are sweeter and delicious! I love the pop of fruit in the cake.
The icing is full of white chocolate. It’s made basically by making white chocolate ganache, then adding butter and powdered sugar. Delicious.
Decorating Your White Chocolate Cake with Sparkling Cranberries
And I was totally in love with the sparkling cranberries. They are just so festive! Because of them though, the cake takes a little planning. The cranberries sit in a simple syrup overnight so they get nice and sticky. Then they’re covered in sugar. I waited until the cake was all made and iced before moving onto the cranberries and that was silly of me. It was whole other day before I could finish off the cake with the cranberries and dig in.
It was worth the wait though.
I used some of the remaining sugar that had clumped together on top of the cake. It felt so snowy and wintery.
Growing up, my younger brother and I always wished for a white Christmas. I don’t think we’ve ever had one, but this cake would definitely make up for it. 🙂
This Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cake was a hit with everyone! I’m so glad too, because I needed help eating it. I knew if I didn’t get it out of the house soon enough, I’d devour the whole thing. Yummy!
You might also like these recipes:
- Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cupcakes
- White Chocolate Cranberry Fudge
- Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Bundt Cake
- White Chocolate Dipped Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
- Cranberry Bliss Bars
Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cake
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
- Yield: 12–14 Servings 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cake recipe is a new Christmas fav! The cake is incredibly moist & flavorful with colorful sparkling cranberries.
Ingredients
SPARKLING CRANBERRIES
- 2 cups fresh cranberries
- 1 1/2 cups (310g) sugar, divided
- 1 cup (240ml) water
CRANBERRY CAKE
- 3 1/3 cups (433g) all purpose flour
- 2 cups (414g) sugar
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups (336g) salted butter (336g), room temperature
- 3 eggs
- 2 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240ml) sour cream
- 1 cup (240ml) milk
- 3 cups fresh cranberries
WHITE CHOCOLATE ICING
- 12 oz white chocolate chips
- 3/4 cup (180ml) heavy whipping cream
- 3/4 cup (168g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 8–9 cups (920-1035g) powdered sugar
- salt, to taste
Instructions
SPARKLING CRANBERRIES:
CRANBERRY CAKE:
WHITE CHOCOLATE ICING:
TO PUT THE CAKE TOGETHER:
Notes
I think most cakes are best if they are allowed to settle for at least 12-24 hours after icing. It allows to flavors to settle. This cake will stay moist for several days after being iced.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Slice
- Calories: 1067
- Sugar: 130.3 g
- Sodium: 222 mg
- Fat: 45.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 159.9 g
- Protein: 8.5 g
- Cholesterol: 143.9 mg
Enjoy!
Categories:
Cakes and Cupcakes, Christmas, Fall and Holiday Favorites, Holidays, Recipes, Sweets and Treats,
Can you verify the amount of vanilla in this recipe. It states 2 tbsp. or should it be 2 tsp.?
Also, can you verify that you use the sugared cranberries in the cake batter or just fresh cranberries? In the list of cake batter ingredients, it states 3 cups of fresh cranberries (not candied cranberries). Thanks for clarifying.
The vanilla is correct, though you could reduce it if you’d like. And yes, I add plain fresh cranberries. The candied ones just go on top.
This is a beautiful and tasty cake. The tart pop of the cranberry is so different and well suited against the contrast of the frosting.
The white chocolate flavor pretty much disappeared in the other ingredients, but it was a flavorful dessert all the same.
I did make my three 8 inch layers two days ahead of time and double wrapped them in saran wrap and then in foil. They thawed overnight in the frig.
I did the frosting early also and covered and kept in frig, then put out for several hours to get soft. I found the frosting a needing some extra vanilla and a tiny splash of almond extract.
The layers thawed beautifully in the frig, still wrapped without forming any condensation. The frosting of the layers was easy and once cut the beautiful contrast of the red and white was just gorgeous. I added some sugared cranberries to the top with some rosemary sprigs alongside.
Now…to address some other comments about the cake being dense. I’m a cake baker and I’ve never seen a ‘dump’ cake recipe cooked in pans before so I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. Normally, a dump cake is typically a bundt style. The batter looked correct and cooked up, it looked correct, but, in cutting the cake, the crumb was so dense it reminded me of the layers in a pound cake that my mama used to call ‘sick’ or ‘sad’. This is usually from over developed gluten from over-mixing or a fast rise and fall. None of these occured so I’m attributing it to the non-traditional mixing method. I would like to recreate this using a more traditional butter/sugar creaming.
Again, the flavors were good, but the dense crumb was almost gelatinous. I love the concept, colors, and flavors of this cake but I wouldn’t make the layers the same way.
Love everything else!
I understand where you’re coming from. This is a super old recipe and I’ve learned a lot since creating it, but people still seem to love it. I’ve thought about changing and updating it so many times (I’ve even made a new one and photographed it), but there’d be so many disappointed people who love this one. It’s even been copied without credit and shared in a magazine. Crazy! But I hear you.
Thank you for your response. For those of us who would prefer more traditional layers, I would love if you could add a ‘note’ to the bottom in the event we wanted a predictably predictable creamed butter and sugar cake. I’d love to keep the ingredients and instructions all coming from you since this is your cake.
Hi!! I made this cake this past weekend and OMG!!! so delish! got so many compliments ☺️
I’m making another cake this weekend, and was specifically asked for a plain layer cake. I loved the base of this cake so much and was wondering if the cake would bake the same if I just removed the cranberries? Thank you so much!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Yes, you could use it as a vanilla cake. It is quite dense though. If you’re looking for a more traditional vanilla cake, this vanilla cake recipe is my most popular.
Made this for a Christmas party last night and it was a huge hit. Not too difficult to make and it’s very showy. Tastes Delicious.
I’m so glad it was a hit!
Hi,
LOVE your blog! I doubled the amount of sparkling cranberries, due to my own situation. Your batter recipe and ratios are perfect for the pan size. Anyone with issues may have old raising agents or something else going on. I have made this several times in different sizes based on your measurements and it has never failed. My only change is a soaking syrup of vanilla bean. (My own change). Great recipe! Thanks!!!!
I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the cake and love the blog! 🙂 Thank you!