Cranberry-Orange Gâteau with Cream-Cheese Filling

We put a little gran marnier on the dried cranberries to soften them up a little before adding them to the batter. (A reviewer stated they couldn't image using dried instead of fresh, so this was what we did.) Cake turned out wonderful with a lot of orange flavor -- be sure to put in good orange peel and don't skimp. We put orange slices on top for a pretty presentation.

Wow, this is a great cake! It's more of an Italian-style cake--crumbly, scented, delicate--than a thick moist American cake. My only changes were to skip the glaze in favor of a sprinkle of powdered sugar and a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side and to use orange liqueur (Cointreau--expensive, but no Triple Sec in the house) to soak the dried cranberries and as an addition (2 tsp) to the cream cheese filling. I also did not cool the cream cheese filling; it was easy to drizzle evenly onto the split cake and I think it might be a lot harder to spread it on when cool. This was a perfect ending to a birthday dinner featuring chicken piccata and spinach fetuccini with an artichoke salad. Very sophisticated, as the CL article says!