Harvey Wallbanger Cake

Christmas Eve at Mama’s house. Christmas Day at our apartment in Tulsa. Brayden is sixty-four weeks old — almost fifteen months. The two-day holiday has the kind of pleasant geographical division that makes both days feel complete.

The Harvey Wallbanger cake is one of Carol Bryant’s vintage recipes — a 1970s yellow-cake-mix-based bundt cake with orange juice, vanilla pudding mix, eggs, oil, vodka, and Galliano in the batter, finished with a sugar glaze flavored with Galliano and orange juice. The cake is the kind of vintage-Americana that lives in a church-cookbook three-ring binder under “Cakes, Spirit-Spiked.” The flavor is bright and orange-forward. The boozy element is mostly atmospheric (most of the alcohol burns off in the bake).

Carol had typed up the recipe in November for the Bryant cookbook (the cookbook is now at thirty-one recipes). The cake is the second-vintage entry in the cookbook after the frozen cherry salad from January 2022. The two vintage-1970s entries are the small statement of the Bryant family’s palate-of-origin — Carol’s mother and grandmother had cooked from the women’s magazines of the 1960s-and-70s, and the recipes that survived from that era are the recipes that endured.

Sunday I made it as a test bake for the shower-and-Christmas-Eve double-occasion. The cake came out well. The bundt was uniformly browned. The glaze set into a thin lacquer. The apartment smelled like orange and warm cake for an hour. Dustin had two slices.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 16

Ingredients

1 box (15.25 oz) yellow cake mix
1 box (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix
4 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup Galliano liqueur
1/4 cup vodka
Butter and flour for greasing the pan
For the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon Galliano liqueur
1 teaspoon orange zest (optional)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter and flour a 10- to 12-cup bundt pan, making sure to coat all the grooves. Tap out any excess flour.
Mix the batter. In a large bowl, combine the yellow cake mix and instant vanilla pudding mix. Add the eggs, vegetable oil, orange juice, Galliano, and vodka. Beat with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes until the batter is smooth and well combined.
Bake. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared bundt pan. Bake for 45–50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the top is golden. The cake will pull slightly away from the sides of the pan when done.
Cool. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a thin knife or offset spatula around the edges and center tube, then invert onto the wire rack. Allow to cool completely before glazing, at least 30 additional minutes.
Make the glaze. Whisk together the powdered sugar, orange juice, and Galliano in a small bowl until smooth. The glaze should be thick enough to coat a spoon but still pourable. Add orange zest if using and stir to combine.
Glaze and serve. Once the cake is fully cooled, transfer to a serving plate. Drizzle the glaze over the top, letting it run down the sides naturally. Allow the glaze to set for 10 minutes before slicing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Harvey Wallbanger Cake