Sunday’s Cake: Orange-Cranberry w/ White Chocolate Glaze

Just when you thought you’d seen enough cranberries…this is actually a little bit of a mash-up.  I’d found a recipe that called for orange juice and zest but reviews complained that the cake was dry.  Plus, I wasn’t sold that the white chocolate glaze would work, and I’ve been frustrated trying to figure out how to get a really luscious-looking white chocolate glaze.  Although the red velvet from last week went over extremely well–not a crumb left–the glaze looked tepid and was too runny.  So this week, I decided to try something a touch different.  Torn between a glaze that called for white chips, cream, and confectioner’s sugar and a nifty little product called white melting wafers (where the company’s done all the hard work for you: put in the milk, the fat, the sugar) . . . I decided to go with the wafers. Laziness, maybe.  Or I was just after that pristine WHITE.

In addition to the ingredients called for in the cake, I also added the zest of two oranges and a half tsp. of orange extract.  I was thinking of fresh-squeezed juice but worried about adding too much liquid or acid to the batter.  I can tell you that the smell when this thing was baking was HEAVENLY, and the batter, lusciously creamy.  So I’ve no worries about the cake.  It looked great fresh out of the oven,

and when I turned it out of the pan.

Even now, it looks *good*–but I worry that I’ve turned the bundt into a cake pop.  OTOH, maybe that’s not all bad.

If you’re moved to try your hand at this particular cake, here’s a link to the recipe.  There, you’ll also find the recipe for the more traditional white chocolate glaze I opted to forgo this time around.  Note that I also used fresh cranberries I’d frozen away just this past fall (that’s one lovely thing about blueberries and cranberries; they freeze so well and with zero fuss).  I let them come up to almost room temperature and cut only the largest in half.

Anyway, we’ll see what the verdict is tomorrow.  One thing’s for sure: everyone had better bring insulin.