Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake.
This cranberry orange coffee cake is drizzled in an orange glaze and filled with a delicious cinnamon streusel. Perfect for the holidays, this cozy cake is ideal for breakfast or dessert!
Your holiday season breakfast is here!
Cranberry orange coffee cake is the epitome of the holiday season, in cake form. A super citrusy, soft and tender cake studded with fresh burst cranberries, filled with a cinnamon streusel and topped with an orange glaze? I am in love.
This is the loveliest holiday breakfast or dessert and I cannot beg you to make it fast enough.
Let’s be real: coffee cake is just an excuse to eat dessert for breakfast. Right? I will find any excuse to have cake for breakfast so here we are. It has fruit! Oranges and cranberries – vitamin C! It’s winter and we should probably eat that up. No complaining here.
SO!
Everyone in my family is obsessed with cranberry orange baked goods. My mom, all three kids, my cousins – they all love it. I’d venture to say that it’s their favorite holiday flavor, especially when it comes to things like muffins and cookies.
Or at least, their favorite holiday FRUIT flavor.
Yes yes. That makes sense.
Because no one here is picking cranberry orange over chocolate.
But anyway.
This cranberry orange cake is based on my blood orange coffee cake from a few years ago. Remember that one?! You guys love it. I love it. It’s beautiful and easy and so so delicious. It’s also great to make ahead of time for breakfast or company.
Plus, it’s super satisfying and filling.
This one is just like that, but filled with bursting cranberries. They look like deep red jewels in the coffee cake and the cinnamon streusel swirl throughout? Oh yum. It’s probably my favorite part.
I love that in this recipe, you mix the fresh grated orange zest with sugar. It really infuses the entire cake with bright, citrusy refreshing orange flavor. It just tastes… vibrant.
The cranberries are tart and complement the orange perfectly. Plus, they are pretty. The deep berry flavor adds a nice element of punch to the otherwise soft, citrus cake.
The drizzle on top is EVERYTHING. Freshly squeezed orange juice and some sugar come together to blanket this cake in the silkiest most beautiful way. It’s a nice touch to the cake and makes it taste extra special.
This cake is the perfect breakfast for christmas or new years. It makes for a wonderful gift to take someone for the holiday season and it also works as dessert too! Serve it with hot coffee and it’s the ultimate moment. I can’t get enough!
It’s also beautiful.
Now go bake everyone’s new favorite cake!
Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake
Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake
Ingredients
STREUSEL
- ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup cold unsalted butter cut into pieces
CAKE
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons freshly grated orange zest
- 3 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cups plain greek yogurt full-fat or 2%
- 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
ORANGE GLAZE
- ¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10-inch bundt cake pan and set aside. Butter and flour is KEY! Don’t use cooking spray.
STREUSEL
- Whisk together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, cocoa, espresso powder and salt. Add the butter pieces and using your hands, mix together the flour and butter until the flour is incorporated and in tiny pieces. It’s okay if the mixture looks like SAND!
CAKE
- Take the sugar and mix it with the orange zest. Rub it in between your fingers to combine fully.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt. In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy, then add the sugar and beat for 4 to 5 minutes on medium speed until fluffy, scraping down the sides if needed. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well for a minute or so after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat well. Beat in the yogurt, again scraping down the sides if needed.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients with the mix on low speed. But until they are just incorporated. Stir in the cranberries.
- Spoon half of the batter into the greased bundt pan. Sprinkle the batter with two thirds of the streusel. Add the remaining batter on top then, swirl in the remaining streusel with a knife. Bake until a wooden pick inserted into the cake comes out clean, about 45 to 55 minutes.
- My cake needed the full 55 and it was perfect.
- Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes. Invert the pan on a wire rack and allow the cake to cool completely. Don’t attempt to move it or it will break apart!
- Once cool, drizzle the cake with the blood orange glaze. Let set for about 30 minutes then slice and serve.
ORANGE GLAZE
- Whisk together the ingredients until combined and smooth.
Did you make this recipe?
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I appreciate you so much!
Fluffy deliciousness.
28 Comments on “Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake.”
I’m guessing the cranberries get folded in with the mixed batter; but please advise amount.
Tks, sounds delicious.
yes 1 cup!
Can you let me know how much cranberries are needed and if they need to be fresh or is frozen ok? Thanks!
ah sorry!! 1 cup! they can be fresh or frozen.
Jessica – for some reason when you “print” the recipe the cranberries disappear (both amount & when to incorporate).
Do you think I could sub out the regular flour for GF to make this for my daughter (who has celiac)? It looks DELICIOUS!
Yes, the creation of Gfree AP flour has been glorious for those with Celiacs (myself included) I love King Arthur GF or Cup4Cup.
You can keep all measurements, ingredients and cook time the same
I don’t see any cranberries in the ingredient list or in the description.
If you don’t have a bundt pan, what size pan could you use instead?
Would 2 small loaf pans work?
Looks amazing and I love that you make it in a Bundt pan. Can the streusel be skipped? For some crazy reason my kids hate it :(
I made this yesterday! I LOVE the flavor combinations! I also do not own a Bundt pan, so don’t let that stop you, I used a 9 x 13 pan. My batter was relatively thick so I had to dollop half of the batter over top of the streusel… But once it was baked it all came together and was wonderful! The only thing that was concerning was the outer pieces around my 9 x 13, got a little more brown than I would like and so those pieces seemed a little dryer. For my oven it took 40 minutes to bake completely. Thank you for yet another great recipe !!
Can I leave the espresso powder out??
yes!
Do you think this could be made in mini loaf pans, for smaller loaves for gift giving? If so how many loaves would this particular recipe make do you think?
Can I substitute gluten flour? I’d like to make this for a get-together, and a friend is gluten intolerant! Thank you!
Seems super delicious , I need to try to make it!
Miki x
https://www.littletasteofbeauty.com/
This turned out great and was a wonderful way to use up both oranges and cranberries I had at home. My glaze came out quite thin even after adding an extra 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, so I will say assess that before putting it on!
Very delicious, and felt incredibly fancy! The dough was very thick and I was sure there was no way it was going to turn out. But somehow it does and is totally worth making! I added all the streusel at once instead of doing the second swirl and that turned out just fine. Thanks for a wonderful recipe!
I made this recipe today because I wanted trial it before having it Christmas morning. It turned out great but my glaze was very thin even after I added extra powdered sugar. The glaze disappeared into the cake so it didn’t look like it had any glaze at all. Please help…how can I make it thicker and look like the picture?
Thank you!
Love your recipes and your book!
I think it should be at least 1 & 3/4 c of powdered sugar for the glaze. :) it was much too thin with only 3/4 c.
That was EXACTLY the question I had! Either less OJ or more sugar was needed.
Surprisingly it turned out delicious and moist. The batter was thick and heavy that I didn’t think it would be great but it was wonderful. I skipped the streusel and used my cranberry sauce with oranges (from Thanksgiving) .
Glaze was on the runny side, had to had more powder sugar to thicken it up.
Overall, it was Yummy! My neighbor and family wants to me to make it again for Christmas.
Thanks for the recipe!!!
Delicious! Mine did not come out as pretty and…i don’t know how i messed up the glaze. It was not white-ish even though I ended up using 1 cup of powdered sugar. It was poured onto a fully cooled cake and sadly was too liquidy to stick. The streusel is also so delicious — i love that there is chocolate and coffee in it. It took a long time to make this, but it was definitely worth it.
Can this be made ahead or prepped ahead for Christmas morning?
That is really dilicious dicer i like it taste. I want to try another one. https://www.mypayments.plus/
This was every bit as good as I hoped it would be! A few comments…
I halved the recipe bc I never got around to making it for Christmas and none of my men will eat orange cranberry anything sadly. I used an 8x 8 pan and halved the recipe exactly even musing one egg and pouting half to make one and a half eggs. It took about 40 min to bake and bc Jamie noted the ends were a little crispy I covered the 4 corners w foil after 30 min. For the glaze I used 1 almost 1 cup of confection sugar and about 1 T of orange squeezed juice from my zested orange. So even if you use the full recipe start w only 2 T of juice for your glaze so it will be thicker. I will def make this again and if I have were to make the whole recipe would use a 9×13 pan for those who don’t have a Bundt. Either way it turned out delicious! The batter is VERY thick I had to use a cookie scoop to add the second layer in drops. And then tried to spread w a knife and it still true w out wonderfully! Hope this helps!
Is it ok to use nonfat Greek yogurt? Or is 2% or full day required ?