This Cranberry Olive Oil Cake recipe screams of Thanksgiving an Christmas. Such an elegant and classy cake bursting with flavors from tart cranberries and has an incredibly moist and tender texture from the olive oil. Trust me, you can’t have enough of this snack cake.

This Cranberry-Olive Oil cake is such an elegant, classy cake that can either be enjoyed at breakfast or as an afternoon snack or as an after dinner dessert. I know and strongly believe that, butter makes everything taste good, but I also very strongly believe that olive oil can make things taster better. I love baking with olive oil, period.
So, why an olive oil cake?
As you have noticed already, most of my cakes are made with olive oil. I rarely use butter. Honestly, no specific reasons. I just love baking with olive oil. Here are my reasons:
- I think, a good, fruity extra-virgin olive oil makes this cranberry olive oil cake super delicious and moist.
- Using olive oil cuts down on “bad” cholesterol and saturated fat in your baking. It’s considered a “good” fat, unlike butter. It also adds extra antioxidants (natural chemicals that help protect our cells) and vitamin E to your baked goods.
- Good olive oil has a fruity taste, but vegetable oil has a very mild flavor. In this cranberry olive oil cake, the flavor is mild.
Ingredients used in Cranberry Olive Oil Cake
- Olive oil – Use a good quality light olive oil.
- All purpose flour
- Eggs
- Sugar
How to make this Cranberry Cake
Mix the wet ingredients – Olive oil & sugar really well
Measure and shift the dry ingredients – all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt
Coat the cranberries with some flour. This will prevent the cranberries from dropping to the bottom
Mix the dry ingredients with wet mixture.
Fold the batter gently. Do not over mix.
Now fold in the cranberries and bake at 350 degree F for 45/50 minutes
Frequently Asked Questions
Fresh or Frozen cranberries to use in this cranberry olive oil recipe?
Use fresh cranberries for this recipe. They will soften and burst as the cake bakes. You can use frozen cranberries too.
Can I replace eggs in this recipe?
If you want to replace eggs, do the following :
For each egg, mix together 1 tablespoon ground flax seed with 3 tablespoons warm water. Let the mixture stand for one minute before using.
or,
For each egg, combine 2 tablespoons of water with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and 2 teaspoons baking powder.


Tips & Tricks for making Cranberry Olive Oil Cake
- Always butter your cake tins and pre heat the oven
- This cake keeps well, because of the olive oil.
- I used fresh cranberries as they’re everywhere this time of year. But if you don’t have fresh cranberries, you go ahead and use frozen cranberries.
- I didn’t use any orange zest but adding orange zest in the batter will take the cake to another level
- I used fresh cranberries as they’re everywhere this time of year so go ahead and do that if you’re so inclined.
- It’s important to let the cake cool in the pan before inverting and unmolding
Other Olive Oil Cakes
Pear Cake with Cinnamon Streusel Topping
Cranberry Olive Oil Cake
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350˚F with a rack in the center of the oven.
- Generously butter and flour your cake pan, tapping out excess flour.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together eggs and sugar for 3 minutes on high speed, until pale in color.
- Add olive oil, vanilla extract, blending between each ingredient then mix in buttermilk until well blended.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt then mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients on low speed until no flour streaks remain.
- Fold cranberries into the batter
- Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350˚F for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean with some moist crumbs.
PIN for Later

This cake looks so delicious. I would love to make something like that for my family!
What an interesting recipe! This sounds delicious. I never made a cake with olive oil in it before, and it is nice to try something different.
Thanks for the mindful vegan detour! I’ll surely be trying the cranberry-olive oil Bundt cake
Use oil instead of butter? Healthy and interesting! Recipe to try!
I saw this on social media and thought it was so awesome. This is perfect for any of these holidays this time of year and I bet it is delicious.
Love this and I am pinning this recipe to my Pinterest page as it is gorgeous! I am also making this so thank you for sharing… I love Cranberry anything!
This looks super tasty! I have only tried olive oil muffin before but never a cake and the cranberry addition sounds amazing!
Your photos are beautiful and you made baking the cake very accessible and tempting.