On the second day

Hello, friends. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with lots of good food and company.

My Christmas was indeed delicious, with roast turkey, rice with chestnuts, pine nuts and soultanas, duck fat roast potatoes and lots of traditional Greek Christmas sweets, like kourabiedes and diples.

On the second day of Christmas I made this cake. It wasn’t really that I needed another sweet around the house, but I wanted to use up the fresh cranberries I had in my fridge. They were going to spoil if I didn’t do anything with them and I hate to waste food.

This cake was the perfect thing to make on the day. Easy, quick and thoroughly enjoyable. A cake made up of three layers. A thin cake layer flavored with Grand Marnier, a layer of plump, fresh cranberries and a crumble topping with demerara sugar, cinnamon and halved blanched almonds.

When it came out of the oven it was difficult to hold off from trying it right then and there. The aromas were torturing us but we had to wait unless we wanted scorched lips.

Crunchy from the almonds and the buttery, almost caramelized crumble, with hints of cinnamon and orangey Grand Marnier, notes of toffee from the demerara sugar and a pleasant sourness from the softened, juicy cranberries bringing balance, a good dollop of thick crème fraîche, and moments later, it was gone.

Cranberry Crumble Cake
Adapted from The Guardian

You can substitute the fresh cranberries with frozen ones that you have thawed before using, however fresh cranberries have superior flavor and texture.

Yield: 6-8 pieces

Ingredients

for the cake
90 g all-purpose flour
90 g soft light brown sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
60 unsalted butter, at room temperature, cubed, plus extra for greasing the pan
2 Tbsp Grand Marnier (or Cointreau or other orange-flavored liqueur)
1 large egg

for the topping
150 g fresh cranberries, rinsed and drained
for the crumble topping
90 g all-purpose flour
90 g demerara sugar
50 g halved blanched almonds
65 g unsalted butter, cold, cubed
½ tsp ground cinnamon

Crème fraîche (or whipped cream), for serving

Special equipment: electric hand-held mixer, round 18cm springform baking pan, baking paper


Preparation
Butter your cake pan and line the sides and bottom with baking paper.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 350 Fahrenheit.

make the cake
In a medium-sized bowl, add all the ingredients for the cake and beat with an electric hand-held mixer on high speed for about 1 minute, until you have a smooth and somewhat stiff batter.

Empty the batter in your prepared baking pan and level it off using the back of a spoon or a spatula.

Scatter the cranberries evenly over the top.

make the crumble topping
In a medium-sized bowl, add all the ingredients for the crumble topping and using your fingertips, rub in the butter until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Scatter evenly over the cranberries.

Place the baking pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a cake tester or skewer inserted in the middle of the cakey base comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool slightly. Then remove the cake from the pan. Be careful as it might break. (Or you can wait until it cools completely before removing it from the pan.)

Serve warm with a dollop of crème fraîche or whipped cream.
You can also serve it at room temperature.

Keep the cake covered at room temperature for 2-3 days.