This Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake is a must if you a looking for a pound cake to round out your Christmas dinner.

This is such a decadent, glorious dessert full of tart cranberries, white chocolate, a dreamy cream cheese frosting that is, sigh, just blissful.

Giving thanks to where it is due for this Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake

This is a recipe review and, interestingly, we found the exact same recipe with the exact same photo on 3 different sites. So, picking one, we chose the recipe from http://cookitonce.com.

The Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake came out picture perfect and is worthy of centerpiece status!

The richness of the pound cake combined with white chocolate is balanced nicely with the tart cranberries and cream cheese frosting.

Recipe review honesty time

We can’t very well chose out a recipe to make and review without sharing any pitfalls or honest opinions with our readers.

Here goes!

The directions on the recipe state that it is 30 minutes of prep. Well, it took us closer to an hour, to be honest. It was a long, long hour.

There are a lot of steps to this pound cake, which is fine. We just weren’t expecting it to take so long. Part of it is due to prep work and detail and the rest to the chilling time.

I got my chocolate cheesecake in the oven faster!!

However, all of these steps, prep work, are totally worth it. The end result is something very special indeed! This Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake is worthy enough to be given as a gift for the holidays!

The breakdown of this Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake

There are ingredients that need to be brought to room temperature, as well as some that need to be mixed together separately before being added.

Make sure to read through the entire recipe before beginning. Nothing worse then the oh no!! surprise halfway through.

The recipe for this Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake calls for the flour in both grams and cup measurements.

Now, we don’t have a kitchen scale, but using the spoon method to measure flour into the measuring cup, then leveling off works just fine.

It also call for the flour, baking powder and salt to be sifted 3 times. While it may seem tedious, we actually still found little lumps at the end of the 2nd sift, and just a couple tiny ones after the 3rd sift.

However, the amazing texture of this pound cake is so worth the extra step.

After preheating oven, buttering and lining pans, and sifting the dry ingredients, the next step is browning some butter.

Make a note, the browned butter doesn’t go into the batter! It is for topping the cake right before it goes into the oven.

Never browned butter before? No worries! It is so easy to do.

First, place the butter in a small saucepan over medium high heat and keep a close eye on it.

When it starts to bubble, swirl it every 30 seconds, and check for the color of the butter under the foam.

Just as the butter starts to brown nicely, remove from the heat. You don’t want the butter to burn. Skim off the foam with a spoon, and set aside to cool.

Browning butter gives it an amazing nutty flavor. It is pretty good right out of the pan….. not that we would know about that!

Who are we kidding! Of course we took a sample, for the sake of the blog…

Tip: do not overcook or burn the butter as it will give it an awful bitter taste! Yuck! For more tips and info go here: https://www.abeautifulplate.com/clarified-butter-ghee-and-brown-butter/.

And another step and another…

Next, the eggs and vanilla need to be combined in their own separate bowl, whisked well. Set those aside to be mixed in alternately with the flour mixture.

Finally, we get to the actual mixing of the batter. Whisk the butter on medium speed until creamy, then gradually add in the sugar, beating until butter and sugar are creamy.

After the butter and sugar are creamy, add in the heavy cream and the Mascarpone cheese, then beat on medium until smooth.

Adjust the mixer to low speed, and slowly add in the dry ingredients alternately with the egg mixture. Mix well before each addition.

Now, take the white chocolate chunks and cranberries and mix with a handful of flour. Toss evenly to cover and fold into the batter. (You can add the chocolate using the mixer, if you like).

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and smooth out the top. Tap the pan gently on your work surface to remove any air bubbles.

The fun of pouring the butter into a narrow line

Next, using a butter knife or even the tip of a teaspoon, draw a line down the middle of the cake. Take the browned butter and carefully spoon into the line.

This part is not as easy as it sounds! Let’s just say that it was a messy process with the butter going everywhere but down the line.

Place the loaf pan into the preheated oven for about 75 minutes, rotating the pan about halfway through. If the top starts to brown too much, cover with tin foil.

Insert a toothpick in the center of the cake. When it comes out clean, the cake is done. But If not, give it a few more minutes.

If using a convection oven, it should be done in about 55 to 60 minutes, still do the toothpick check.

The Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake is done! Onward to the next step!

Place the cake on a cooling rack, after 15 minutes, remove from the baking pan, and allow to cool completely.

Now it is time to make the frosting!! Mix the softened cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar together until smooth, add in the vanilla.

If it doesn’t seem thick enough feel free to add more powdered sugar, in 1/4 cup increments.

I actually piped the frosting on, then smoothed it out with a frosting spatula. It was a lot easier than trying to get the frosting on to all sides of the cake.

Place the cake in the fridge until the frosting is set, about 30 minutes.

Now, it is time for the garnishments.

Place the white chocolate baking chips into a small pan with the vegetable oil, over low heat, stirring often until smooth.

Sprinkle some dried cranberries over the top of the cake.

Let the chocolate mixture cool for a minute or two, and drizzle of the top of the cake.

The white chocolate is fairly thin, and you won’t need to squeeze to piping bag!

And, finally, we finish our Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake!

Whew…what a workout!

Conclusion and wrap up time

This Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake review has to be our most time consuming recipe we have done for the blog.

But it is worth it! The taste of this is decadent, glorious dessert is a perfect blend of tart cranberries, white chocolate, and dreamy cream cheese frosting!

A cake like this is a beauty to behold and is an excellent gift for someone special.

Looking for other ideas for desserts? check out our Oreo Cheesecake Review, Pumpkin-Maple Crustless Cheesecake Review, or our Swedish Sticky Chocolate Cake (Kladdkaka). So many choices!

As always, we would love to hear from you so drop us a line!

Love

The Morgan Sisters

Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake

Recipe by Tanya MorganCourse: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Difficult

Servings

servings

Prep time

hour

Cooking time

hour

minutes

Total time

hours

minutes

Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake is a decadent dessert full of tart cranberries, white chocolate, and cream cheese frosting. Stunning to behold!

Ingredients

For the Cake:
187 grams cake flour-sifted (it’s about 1 1/2 cups plus 3 Tablespoons cake flour before sifting but you better measure it on kitchen scale because the cake could be dense or dry if you overdo it with the flour )

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 cup cranberries (fresh or thawed)

140 grams (5 oz.) white chocolate chunk

115 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted butter-softened at room temperature

300 grams sugar ( 1 and 1/2 cups)

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 Tablespoons browned butter
Frosting:
56 grams (1/4 cup) unsalted butter-softened

112 grams (4 oz.) cream cheese-softened

1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar (or more to make it thick enough to spread on top of the cake)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Garnish:
handful dried cranberries

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the convection air oven to 325 F (if you don’t have convection air oven raise the temperature to 350 F and you will have to rotate the pan half way through the baking time)
Butter and flour 8.5 x 4.5 x 3 (or 9 x 5 x 3 )inches loaf pan and line it with parchment paper.
Combine cake flour, baking powder and salt and sift it three times, set aside.
In a small sauce pan over medium heat brown 2.5 Tablespoons butter until it’s nice amber color, remove the foam and set aside to cool.
Whisk the egg with vanilla extract and set aside.
Mix the butter on medium speed until it’s creamy, slowly add sugar and continue beating until it’s creamy.
Add heavy cream and mascarpone, and beat on medium speed.
Add heavy cream and mascarpone, and beat on medium speed.
Add handful flour in chocolate chunks and toss them to cover evenly. Toss cranberries with a handful flour to cover them completely.
Add chocolate chunks in the batter and stir well, then gently stir in cranberries
Pour the batter into prepared loaf pan, smooth the top and gently tap the pan on working surface to remove the air bubbles.
With a butter knife draw a line down the center of the pound cake and pour browned butter into the line.
Bake until the top of the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean (about 55 to 65 minutes). If you don’t have convection air oven, baking time might be about 10 minutes longer. If the top starts browning too much tent the cake with aluminum foil
Cool the cake in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool on the rack.
When the cake is completely cooled prepare the glaze.
With a mixer, cream together softened butter and cream cheese until smooth. Slowly add in powdered sugar and beat until smooth, mix in vanilla extract. Spread on top of the cake.Place the cake in the fridge until the frosting is set.
When the frosting is set melt 1/2 cup white chocolate chips with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a small sauce pan over low heat until it’s smooth( cool if it’s too thin)
Sprinkle the cake with dried cranberries and drizzle with chocolate. (You can drizzle the chocolate with a spoon or transfer it into small zip-lock bag, cut off the corner and pipe the chocolate over the cake).

Notes

If you are using frozen cranberries, thaw them first, rinse with cold water until the water is clear, drain the cranberries and then dry them on paper towel.

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