All Purpose Holiday Cake
Written by joythebaker on November 3, 2008 – 2:33 am -
It’s November, and that means that we’ve undeniably entered the holiday season. In my world that means lots of family, lot of parties and eating a ridiculous, almost painful amount of food. Cocktail parties. Tacky Christmas sweater parties. Surprise guests and…. my oh my… is it too early to be this excited?
Despite all of my (possibly premature) excitement, I’ll admit that I’m sometimes at a loss when it comes to a holiday night out. If I’m not fussing over what I’m going to wear, I’m getting nit picky about the dessert that I’m going to bring. It’s enough to drive myself crazy and send me straight to the egg nog bowl when I hit the party. The egg nog is always such a nice thought, but the actual introduction of egg nog into my system is a very, very bad idea.
This weekend I picked up a few party dresses and tights- festive and hip but not over the top. I also baked up the perfect all purpose holiday cake. It’s a winner because you can throw it together with virtually anything and everything you have in your pantry.
Let’s discuss…
Here’s how this simple cake is going to rock your holiday party life just as hard as I’m going to rock my fierce new black dress and silver heels:
-Bundt pans equal instant pretty whether dusted with powdered sugar or dripping with glaze.
-If you have apples, you have a cake.
-No mixer necessary! All you’ll need is two bowls and a wooden spoon.
-Your house will smell like warm apples and cinnamon. Winner!
-Rum or Bourbon or orange juice- choose your adventure.
-This cake stays moist for days and even tastes better the second day!
-Some of the variations I thought of are all included in the ingredient list.
Bring on the holidays. Bring on the parties. I’ve got the goods. I’ve got the heels. I’ve got the cake. I’m ready to go.
Incidentally, you may need to remind me of my early enthusiasm sometime in early December. I’m not very good at pacing myself.
All Purpose Holiday Cake or Apple Cranberry Bourbon Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 Tablespoon dark Rum (or Bourbon or orange juice)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Cortland or Empire or Granny Smith or Gala apples, peeled, cored and cut into a 1/4 inch dice (you can make the apple slices slightly bigger if you like a chunkier cake)
1/2 cup fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped (or raisins or dried cranberries or dried apricots diced or chopped walnuts maybe even chocolate chips)
Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan, knocking out excess flour.
Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.
Whisk together oil, eggs, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, rum or bourbon and vanilla in a large bowl until just combined. Fold in flour mixture until just combined, then fold in apples and cranberries. The batter will feel thick and heavy. Spoon the batter into pan.
Bake until a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center of cake comes out clean, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 30 minutes, then turn out onto rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
Tags: Apple, cake, christmas, cranberry, Holiday, Joy the Baker, recipe, thanksgiving
Posted in Booze, Cakes, Fruit, Holiday, NaBloPoMo, Recipes, Tips and Tricks | 43 Comments »
Oh my! This looks amazing! Thanks for sharing the recipe….and posting every day this month!
PS – Glaze instead of “graze” maybe??
Ha! Thanks for the correction Mona!
wow this looks so moist and nice.
ha and i thought i was the one who gets thinking about christmas so early. you really bet me at this 
great recipe
Yum! Looks delicious.
What a wonderful cake recipe!
Oh man, my hubby is not going to be happy, he is trying to lose weight and I am not helping, or should I say, You aren’t helping with all your awesome recipes. Thanks so much for making the holidays that much better. Oh and I think its supposed to say 1 Tablespoon Dark Rum, not run?
I’m already getting super excited too and have many menu plans running through my head. Like your idea of picking up a few items for your wardrobe, though. I’m always to busy fussing over a dessert for the party, that how I look comes second. Tisk-tisk.
What a great holiday cake. I’m never going to shed any pounds!! I need to put this on my list.
Everything in one. I love it!! Perfect for the holidays for sure!
That looks so pretty! I love bundt cakes.
i feel ya on the whole obseeing over what to bring…and wear to holiday parties. this cake sounds wondrous!
This looks so beautiful and delicious! It would definitely be the perfect dessert for a holiday party.
thanks so much for posting this- I have a beautiful bundt pan that I received as a wedding present almost a year and a half ago and have yet to use! This cake looks great- and I love that you can substitute different things in it to change it up!
I have a hard time getting excited about the holidays before November … but November is here! And I bought cranberries when they were first in the grocery store awhile back and froze them. Time to get them out!
Since it has cranberries i’d like permission to post it on our website. I will definately try it.
Looks like a festive Bundt.
I love your writing, and the cake looks wonderful! Happy holidays season!
This looks wonderful — cannot wait to try it. After I vote, of course!
This looks fantastic, but I don’t have a bundt tin. Argh! Do you think I could do it in a long loaf pan instead?
So moist and rich looking!
Mmmmm that looks delish! I am going to have to try that this holiday season!
Great photos. It looks so good and moist.
And as if I didn’t have enough to do tomorrow now I have to find my bundt pan and make this cake. mmmmm.
I thought that feeling of impending dread was the thought of more boring holiday parties. But this will make things fun! I love the variations! At last, a choose-your-own-ending cake!
I made the all-purpose holiday cake last night, for my birthday party which is tonight. My boyfriend will probably buy me one of those grocery store bakery cakes (which I dislike, but its the thought that counts), but I wanted to have this cake too. When it was on the cooling rack, a loose apple chunk and a tiny piece of cake fell off together from the bottom. I ravenously ate them and then “accidentally” ate around the hole that got started by the fallen apple chunk, making it a few inches wide! It isn’t very deep though, and its on the bottom, so no one will notice. Normally this would be extremely shameful, but its my damn birthday cake and I can eat a secret squirrel hole into the bottom of it if I want to! Anyway, the part I ate so far was delicious and I can’t wait to have a civilized piece of it tonight! Thanks for a great recipe.
Just baked this cake! It’s currently cooling and I can’t wait to have a slice with some milk before heading off to bed…:)
How delicious! I need to get one of those pans…
Great cake! Cranberries and apples are definitely fall/holiday-friendly ingredients and I love the addition of bourbon!
I’d give anything for a fruity holiday cake like that! looks delicious!:)
btw, it would be great if you could send this in for my Vegetarian Thanksgiving recipe carnival! it would be such a perfect addition to the roundup:)
This will be my stress reliever this weekend! I can’t wait to get baking and I am sure that it will get the thumbs-up as Christmas dessert, which means that I don’t have o make trifle like his mother made it…. O the wonderful world of baking…
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fantastic recipe…can’t wait to try it! just finding your blog for the first time….bookmarking it right now!
Just wanted to say THANKS! I made a low-fat version of this for Thanksgiving (egg beaters, sub applesause for most of the oil… I want my Dad around for awhile) and it was such a hit….in fact it was completetly gone by Saturday morning (we all suspect my younger brother). I am already anticipating a request for Christmas.
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This is rocking my world! I have to give this a try during the holidays!
Looks delicious. I’m wondering if it would work in miniature bundt pans, what with those chunks of fruit and all. But I’d like to make a couple dozen of these cakes in miniature for my coworkers.
I made this last night, and it’s fabulous!! I have to admit, that I went ahead and added bittersweet chocolate to the fresh cranberries and apples, and upped the dark rum to 2 tab, and the vanilla by an addt’l 1/2 tsp. It’s like crack. My ass thanks you!!
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I made your delicious cake for New Year’s Eve and it was a huge hit. Better still, I used a cake pan my sister gave me for Christmas in the shape of Texas. I used cranberries to mark the major Texas cities which made for a great geography lesson for our friends here in California. I will be coming back to this recipe again and again, much like I keep going back to the refrigerator for another slice. It’s maybe even tastier cold?!
Thanks again!
April
Want to make this wonderful cake even better?
When the cake is cool, completely brush it with a brown sugar/whiskey glaze.
Boil a cup of brown sugar, 1/2 stick butter and 1/4 cup milk for several minutes. When removed from the burner, stir in 1/4 cup of Jack Daniels Whiskey. All your cake will be devoured!
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[...] -I made a trip to Costco with my mom that totally made my weekend. Aside from the tons of free samples they actually had cranberries in stock! This means I can officially kick off my Fall baking! First on the list: Joy the Baker’s All-purpose Holiday Cake. [...]