10 holiday cake recipes

Cranberry pecan pound cake studs a buttery sour cream batter with toasted pecans, fresh cranberries, and ¼ cup of orange liqueur. Make ahead for the holidays, dust with powdered sugar.

Old-fashioned prune and pecan spice cake with buttermilk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, topped with a hot buttermilk icing poured on while still baking.

Holiday fruit cake bakes candied pineapple, red and green cherries, golden and dark raisins, pecans, and oats into a nutmeg-mace spiced loaf. Wraps and keeps for weeks.

Rich chocolate fudge cake with instant coffee and sour cream, topped with a glossy fudge nut glaze. A single-layer showstopper for holiday dessert tables.

Old-fashioned prune cake with buttermilk, pecans, and warm spices soaked in a boiled buttermilk-butter sauce. Needs three days to cure for the richest, most intense flavor.

Prune cake is an old-fashioned Southern holiday spice cake with chopped prunes, pecans, buttermilk, and warm spices, soaked with a buttermilk-butter sauce. Three-day rest deepens flavor.

Holiday cheddar date cake bakes a tube of brown sugar batter loaded with shredded sharp cheddar, dates, pecans, candied cherries, and golden raisins. A surprising savory-sweet fruitcake that keeps for 6 weeks.

Holiday ice cream cake: a triple-layer freezer cake with three flavors of ice cream stacked between chopped candy bars, Oreo cookies, and homemade chocolate ganache.

No-bake holiday chocolate cake layered with orange juice-soaked macaroons, bittersweet ganache, chopped prunes, and toasted almonds. Dusted with cocoa and chilled overnight for deep, complex flavor.

Holiday baked oysters layer buttery toasted bread cubes with briny oysters, cream, lemon, and a cayenne kick, then bake into a golden casserole. The classic scalloped oysters that grace holiday tables.