Recipe: Cranberry Pudding Cake: A Great and Easy Holiday Dessert

(Originally published Oct 9, 2008~Ciao under my pen-name of pyewacket)

Also published on Yahoo.voices

Cranberry Pudding Cake

Traditionally, I always make this dessert for New Year's Day dinner, yet this is one of those versitile desserts one can make for any holiday meal and is fairly simple and easy to make.

This recipe calls for fresh cranberries...do not use canned as it just won't work. Around Thanksgiving time, one can usually see bags of fresh cranberries being sold...stock up on a few bags, and freeze as they freeze extremely well.

CRANBERRY PUDDING CAKE

1 Cup sugar divided

1½ Cups fresh cranberries

2 teaspoons grated orange rind

1¾ Cups unsweetened orange juice

1 Cup flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoons salt

½ Cup skim milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine ½ cup sugar, cranberries, grated orange rind, and unsweetened orange juice in large saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes or until cranberry skins pops, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool a bit.

Combine remaining sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and sitr well. Combine milk, and vanilla then add to the dry ingredients, stirring until the dry ingredients are just moistened.

Spoon the batter into a greased shallow 2-quart casserole baking dish...a soufflé dish is also ideal for this. Pour the cranberry mixture evenly over the batter. Bake at 350º for about 40 minutes or until golden brown.