Cranberry Upside-Downer

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Sabrina of Superfluous. She chose the Cranberry Upside-Downer , which is an upside down cake with cranberry topping. This has a great picture in the cookbook, and I know that this is a recipe that I’ve looked at many times. I was really excited to hear that this recipe had been picked. I was a little worried about finding cranberries in early September, but I was bound and determined to find them. I really wanted to make this with cranberries, not some other variation. You can get the complete recipe for this cake on Sabrina’s blog and you can also visit the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see how other bakers interpreted this recipe.

I’ve actually been on vacation for the past three weeks, and this is the first thing that I made once I got home. The weather is definitely feeling like fall, and this is a great all recipe. I had to go to a couple of stores to find cranberries, but I did find some at the local co-op. They were frozen, but I usually work with frozen cranberries anyway. I had bought some last fall to have in the freezer, but our refrigerator/freezer decided to quit working this spring so we had to throw everything out. I will make sure I stock up once cranberries arrive in the store, but I was glad that I was able to find frozen ones.

I thought that this was a very impressive cake for how easy it was to make. You melt sugar and butter and put it in the bottom of the pan and add the cranberries and nuts (I used almonds). The cake batter has a wonderful cinnamon flavor, which was a nice addition to the cranberries. We had the cake still warm from the oven, which was so good. The cake had wonderful texture, nice and moist. The cranberry topping is tart, but I love that! I bake a lot with cranberries around the holidays and this cake would be perfect for Thanksgiving. Since pumpkin pie isn’t that popular with my family, I just may make this again for Thanksgiving!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 206