A beautiful high altitude cranberry Christmas cake, with layers of soft and moist vanilla cake filled with homemade cranberry jelly, cranberry buttercream, and sugared cranberries and rosemary. The vanilla cake is so tender and fluffy, and the cranberry jelly filling is a little tart, with a flavor and texture that’s similar to canned cranberry sauce. This is a gorgeous cake to serve for Christmas, or anytime this holiday season.
Looking for more Christmas baking inspiration? Don’t miss this gingerbread sheet cake with powdered sugar snowflakes, hot chocolate layer cake, and a tutorial for the cutest snowman cake.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Easy to Decorate. The sugared cranberries and rosemary are so beautiful, you’ll love how easy it is to decorate this cranberry cake, no matter your skill level.
Perfect for the Holidays. This makes a gorgeous and festive dessert for Thanksgiving or Christmas. And if you don’t want a pink cake, you can just leave the cranberry jelly out of the buttercream.
Everything can be Prepped in Advance. While there are a few different components to this cake, everything can be made in advance. So when you’re ready to assemble and decorate your cake, everything is ready to go.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
Sugared Cranberries and Rosemary
To decorate the cake, sugared cranberries and rosemary are easy to make, and look just beautiful. All you need is water, sugar, fresh or frozen cranberries and fresh rosemary sprigs.
Cranberry Jelly Filling
The cranberry jelly is homemade, and tasted just like canned cranberry sauce. It’s seedless, silky smooth, and makes a perfect cake filling. You can get my cranberry jelly recipe here.
Vanilla Cake
For the cake, I used my favorite high altitude vanilla cake recipe. It’s soft, moist and fluffy, and just delicious paired with the cranberry jelly and buttercream.
Buttercream
The buttercream is rich and fluffy, not too sweet, and tinted a pretty pink from a few spoonfuls of the cranberry jelly.
Instructions
Make the sugared cranberries and rosemary.
- In a saucepan, combine the water with half the sugar. Bring to a boil, then simmer on medium heat for 3 minutes.
- Remove from the heat. Stir in the cranberries, and stir for about a minute to thoroughly coat the cranberries in the simple syrup. Use a slotted spoon to remove the cranberries, and spread them out in a single layer on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.Dip the sprigs of fresh rosemary in the simple syrup, then place those on the baking sheet.Let the cranberries and rosemary dry for 1 hour.
- Pour the remaining half of the sugar into a bowl. Working in small batches, toss the cranberries and the rosemary in the granulated sugar, until evenly coated with sugar. Place them back on the baking sheet. Let the sugared cranberries and rosemary dry for 1 hour.
- Once dry, store the sugared cranberries and rosemary in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, or refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.
Make Ahead: You can make the sugared cranberries and rosemary 1-2 days in advance. Before decorating your cake, you can freshen them up by tossing them in the sugar again.
Make the cranberry jelly.
- Get my recipe for seedless cranberry jelly here.
Make Ahead: You can make the cranberry jelly several days in advance, keeping it refrigerated until needed.
Bake the cake.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and spray the bottoms of three 6-inch cake pans with non-stick spray.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the egg, egg white, buttermilk, melted butter, oil and vanilla extract, and whisk for about 10-15 seconds until smooth and well combined.
- Divide the batter between the cake pans. Tap a few times against the counter to pop any large air bubbles. Bake the cakes for about 17-18 minutes, or until a cake tester or a toothpick comes out clean, and the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Set the pans on a wire rack, cover them loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting. When ready to frost and assemble the cake, remove the cakes from the pans.
Make Ahead: You can make the cake layers one day in advance, let them cool until warm, and wrap individually in plastic wrap, if you’re going to assemble and frost your cake the following day. The wrapped cakes can also be frozen for up to 3-6 months.
Make the buttercream.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth.
- With the mixer running on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the meringue powder and the salt, mixing until thick and combined.
- Add the vanilla and the cranberry jelly. Increase speed to medium and whip for 4-5 minutes, scraping the bowl down several times, until light and fluffy. Turn the speed down to “stir” and mix for 2 minutes to get rid of air bubbles.
Assemble and decorate your cake.
- Place one of the cake layers on a cake board or cake pedestal. Snip the end off a piping bag (or just a quart-sized zip bag), and fill with about a cup of the buttercream. Pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge of the cake; this will be the “dam” to keep the jelly from spilling out when you frost your cake.
- Spread 1/4 – 1/3 cup of the jelly inside the ring of buttercream.
- Repeat stacking and filling the remaining cake layers, ending with the 3rd cake layer on top.
- Frost the cake all over with a thin “crumb coat” of buttercream. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to set the crumb coat.
- Frost the cake with a final layer of buttercream. Decorate with the sugared cranberries and rosemary.
Other Decorating Ideas
- Wreath. Arrange the sprigs of rosemary in a circle around the cake, either on top, or around the base of the cake. Add the sugared cranberries to complete the look.
- Trees. Use the sugared rosemary to make a bunch of small trees, either around the sides of the cake or on top. Rosemary trees look so pretty next to a little cookie house placed on top of the cake.
- Sheet Cake. If you’re not into layer cakes, you can double the cake recipe, and bake two thin layers in two 9×13 pans. Spread one layer with the cranberry jelly, top with the other cake layer, and frost all over with the buttercream. Scatter the sugared cranberries all over the top for an easy and beautiful dessert that feeds a bigger crowd.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common questions with cake making, so that you can be successful in your own baking! I also suggest reading these comprehensive posts on making Perfect American Buttercream, How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost Layer Cakes and How to Use Piping Bags.
Frequently Asked Questions
What size cake pans should I use if I double the recipe?
You can double the cake recipe and bake it in three 8-inch pans or two 9-inch pans – you can get the full cake recipe in this vanilla cake post.
There’s no need to double the cranberry jelly – you’ll have plenty left if you need more to fill a larger cake.
For the buttercream, just scale it up by 1 1/2 times.
Can I use canned cranberry sauce instead of making the cranberry jelly?
That would probably work just fine, although canned cranberry sauce is thicker and more gelled, and would be harder to spread as a cake filling.
How long do the sugared cranberries and rosemary stay fresh?
They should stay fresh for about 2 weeks, stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container. You can freshen them up by tossing them in more granulated sugar.
Other Resources
How to Make Perfect American Buttercream
How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost a Layer Cake
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High Altitude Cranberry Christmas Cake with Sugared Cranberries
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Whisk Attachment
- Medium-Sized Saucepan
- Baking Sheet + Parchment Paper
- 6-inch Round Cake Pans (x3)
Ingredients
Sugared Cranberries and Rosemary
- ⅓ cup water
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar, divided
- 1 cup fresh cranberries
- 1 bunch fresh rosemary sprigs
Cranberry Jelly Filling
- ¾ cup seedless cranberry jelly
Vanilla Cake
- 1 ½ cups + 2 tbsp cake flour, spooned and leveled
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg white (save the extra yolk for another use)
- ¾ cup whole buttermilk, room temperature
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Buttercream
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 ½ tsp meringue powder, optional
- ⅛ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp cranberry jelly (Don't add the jelly unless you want the buttercream to be pink. For a white/ivory buttercream, simply leave out the jelly and add a small amount of milk if needed for desired consistency.)
Instructions
Sugared Cranberries and Rosemary
- TIP: Make these one day in advance.
- In a saucepan, combine the water with half the sugar. Bring to a boil, then simmer on medium heat for 3 minutes.
- Remove from the heat. Stir in the cranberries, and stir for about a minute to thoroughly coat the cranberries in the simple syrup. Use a slotted spoon to remove the cranberries, and spread them out in a single layer on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.Dip the sprigs of fresh rosemary in the simple syrup, then place those on the baking sheet.Let the cranberries and rosemary dry for 1 hour.
- Pour the remaining half of the sugar into a bowl. Working in small batches, toss the cranberries and the rosemary in the granulated sugar, until evenly coated with sugar. Place them back on the baking sheet. Let the sugared cranberries and rosemary dry for 1 hour.
- Once dry, store the sugared cranberries and rosemary in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, or refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.
- Before decorating your cake, you can freshen up the cranberries and rosemary by tossing them in the sugar again.
Cranberry Jelly
- TIP: Make this one day in advance.
Vanilla Cake
- TIP: You can make the cake layers one day in advance, let them cool until warm, and wrap individually in plastic wrap, if you're going to assemble and frost your cake the following day. The wrapped cakes can also be frozen for up to 3-6 months.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and spray the bottoms of three 6-inch cake pans with non-stick spray.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the egg, egg white, buttermilk, melted butter, oil and vanilla extract, and whisk for about 10-15 seconds until smooth and well combined.
- Divide the batter between the cake pans. Tap a few times against the counter to pop any large air bubbles. Bake the cakes for about 17-18 minutes, or until a cake tester or a toothpick comes out clean, and the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Set the pans on a wire rack, cover them loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting. When ready to frost and assemble the cake, remove the cakes from the pans.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth.
- With the mixer running on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the meringue powder and the salt, mixing until thick and combined.
- Add the vanilla and the cranberry jelly. Increase speed to medium and whip for 4-5 minutes, scraping the bowl down several times, until light and fluffy. Turn the speed down to "stir" and mix for 2 minutes to get rid of air bubbles.
Assembly
- Place one of the cake layers on a cake board or cake pedestal. Snip the end off a piping bag (or just a quart-sized zip bag), and fill with about a cup of the buttercream. Pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge of the cake; this will be the "dam" to keep the jelly from spilling out when you frost your cake.
- Spread 1/4 – 1/3 cup of the jelly inside the ring of buttercream.
- Repeat stacking and filling the remaining cake layers, ending with the 3rd cake layer on top.
- Frost the cake all over with a thin "crumb coat" of buttercream. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to set the crumb coat.
- Frost the cake with a final layer of buttercream. Decorate with the sugared cranberries and rosemary.
So gorgeous- so many accolades thanks to you. I made 3 layer high 9 inch- spectacular! Thanks for this great website your recipes never fail! Mo in Boulder