Thursday, December 23, 2010
Happy Returns and whatever: Chuckle’s Gift to You - Crandberry Cake in the Recipe Corner
You thought I’d forgotten you, but let’s say you were just sort of temporarily mislaid. It’s all good now, but honestly, things are pretty busy and they are not getting unbusier anytime soon. There are festivities and doings and preparations, and I believe some folderol has even been penciled in on a contingency basis. Given the chance I’d be busy even at this very moment but I seem to have anticipated this self-abnegating proclivity by breaking my goddamn toe. The pinky on my right foot is righteously busted, and while there’s nothing much to be done about it but Rest Ice Compression Elevation, it feels rather self-indulgent to sit here with my feet up. So, I’ll placate my angst by blogging. It’s what the ancients did, it’s what the International Blogging Authority requires, and it’s good enough for me.
I’ve got some essays lined up but they feel kind of depressing for a posting of this pre-auspicious date just barely ahead of exmas and all that. I also have some cool photos of the TBT teardown and while I know that nothing says yuletide like an iron ball crashing into a bus terminal I’ll save that for later too. However, there is one Chucklehut feature to which this season particularly lends itself: THE RECIPE CORNER. So, probably, most of you will now move on and ignore the rest of this posting. That would be a pity, but it’s not like you haven’t disappointed me before.
But for the rest of you stalwart kitcheneers, this is a recipe for a cake that has now been a smash success four times in a row. It’s an easy recipe and it stands out on the table with a whole mass of other round cakes. Do yourself a favor and make it for yourself first.
Backstory: Z told us a few years ago that he wanted to bake a cake. We asked what kind; he told us “a cherry cake.” We were surprised and flummoxed but the internet provided some good options. I don’t recall where this one came from; I’m sorry, internet. But I did update it a little so I can claim it as my own, because we ran out of cherries and I substituted in sweetened cranberries - WHICH ROCKED. So now it’s no longer a recipe for cherry anything, and this is how you make CANDIED CRANBERRY CAKE:
Make candied cranberries by chopping up half a cup of dried cranberries. I’m lucky to have a very nearby source of the most luscious naturally-sweet dried cranberries I’ve ever tasted, but this is something you can do with any old dried cranberries you pick out of your gorp: Get half a cup of water simmering in a small shallow pan, and immediately add half a cup of sugar and keep on a low simmer. The sugar will eventually disappear into the water; then add the half-cup of chopped berries. Let the berries simmer gently for about half an hour; then drain through a strainer into a bowl because that cranberry simple syrup is awesome to have around. BUT ANYWAY. Let it drain while you make the batter:
You’ll need a basic 9” round cake pan and an oven at 350F. So go out and get one of each of those.
Combine 1-1/2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and one cup of white sugar. (Use a bowl of some sort.)
In another bowl, mix up 1/2 cup vegetable oil, one egg, and 8 ounces of vanilla yogurt. (Here’s where I got all Inner Richmond on this mofo by getting some boutique lebanese-style plain yogurt and vanillaing it up with, um, vanilla, plus some of that simple syrup I had from before. Or use agave or honey or any other liquefied sweetener. You know what I mean. Taste it every so often and get it just the way you like it. You know, once again, what I mean.)
Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff. Since that baking powder is the only leavening agent, you don’t want to overmix, so I recommend folding it gently with a spatula, but that’s my advice in almost any situation so it’s hardly worth adding here. Once it’s getting mixed pretty well, add the candied cranberries (you can call them “crandberries") and finish mixing.
Pour the batter into the greased and floured nine-inch baking pan; tap gently to settle the batter. Stir 1/4 cup chopped pecans and one tablespoon of sugar together and sprinkle it on top of the batter. (Of course, I felt compelled to simmer the pecans in a simple syrup made of sugar left over from when we made candied pumpkin, which was awesome - soak chunks of pumpkin flesh in lime juice overnight, boil them for ten minutes, pierce them several times, cover them with sugar and roast for three hours at 300. Then you’ve got all this sublimely-perfumed pumpkin sugar, together with the candied chunks of pumpkin which you should cool on waxed paper and then wrap individually in pieces of waxed paper. They’ll blow your mind.) Bake the cake for 35 minutes, and then cool it on a rack for 10 minutes or it’ll fall apart when you try to take it out of the pan. Let yourself breathe. It’s all good. You’ve made an awesome cake and no one can ever take that away from you. Unless you eat it, as I understand the proverb to require.
Serves 1. Happy holidays.
