Little black dress cake, part two

Here it is, folks -- the little black dress cake, a.k.a. the spiced cranberry bundt cake from Bon Appetit. I baked it last night. Unfortunately, I was a little too eager to take it out of the pan and lost a big chunk in the process. Oh, well. It gave Carl and I an excuse to do a taste test.

The verdict? Pretty good. Definitely not the best cake I've ever tasted, but worth serving to guests. And worth baking again. I was actually surprised at how easy it was to prepare the cake. The hardest part was cutting the cranberries in half. If I bake it again, I'll probably use a regular bundt cake pan rather than a silicone one (in silicone, it just takes too long to bake).

I also thought the Chinese Five Spice (sounds like a strange ingredient for cake, huh?) was a little overwhelming, so I'll probably cut that ingredient down. My one regret is that I left out the chopped almonds. I didn't have any on hand, and didn't think it was that big of a deal. After tasting the cake, though, I am convinced that the almonds are a key ingredient.