Leftover cranberry relish cake

A quick and easy cake using leftover cranberry relish (the raw cranberry, orange, and sugar kind).

This is based on Laurie Colwin's cranberry cake, which someone recommended, and I wanted to try. But I didn't have almond extract or whole cranberries, and I didn't feel like shelling and chopping up walnuts, so I modified the basic batter recipe to accommodate the relish, then left out the nuts and added lemon.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups flour
2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cups melted butter
juice and zest of about 1/3 to 1/2 lemon
1 cup or so leftover cranberry relish, from this recipe or the recipe from the cranberry bag

NOTE: Apologies in advance for the crummy pictures. I have a crummy camera, but most importantly, I am a crummy photographer. Sorry!

Step 1 Combine everything but the relish

Mix together the flour, eggs, melted butter, and sugar, and the juice and zest of about a third to half a lemon.

Your batter should be a little thicker than normal cake batter, to accommodate the goopiness of the cranberry relish you'll be adding next.

Comments

[SlothOnSpeed]

If serving this for company, you could add a great deal to the appearance of the cake by putting a paper doily on the top then sprinkling with confectioner's sugar. Remove the doily (carefully) to leave a lacy pattern in sugar on your cake. Or you could declare it as "too good for company," and eat it all yourselves, without decoration. After all, the people you love should get the best stuff, no?

[lisarea]

That's a great idea. These cakes can be pretty tragic looking, and I'm in the process of making them again this year. (And this reminds me I wanted to try them with leavening too.) This is probably a dumb question, but where do you get doilies? I don't think I've ever bought them before. Do they have them in grocery stores?

[SlothOnSpeed]

Paper doilies can be found in the baking area of any good-sized supermarket. Just ask at the front desk, if you're having a hard time (these days, the stock people are usually employed by someone other than the Supermarket and can't help you find anything). The other place for doilies is any party store. They usually have them in many designs and shapes. Or you could easily make a folded paper snowflake and use that for a doily. I suggest cutting out a circle of paper slightly larger than your cake and folding it into a nice wedge (4-6 sections). Scallop the edges of the circle and cut out little hearts (a paper punch is helpful here) Voila' a one-of-a-kind doily that didn't cost more than a sheet of printer paper, and didn't require a trip anywhere.

[ambermcgregor]

Ok, this is awesome. I was a little hesitant to use my wonderful cranberry relish leftover (I love it so) in a recipe I've never tasted before, but this was absolutely well worth the cup of leftover relish. It's num nummy and somewhat makes me think of a sweetened cranberry shortbread cake. I was thinking it would be like a sweetened scone, but it's far more buttery. It makes me think of something my grandmother makes called coogah or however you spell that. When I moved from the midwest to the south, nobody seemed to know what I was talking about when I said 'koogah?" I'll have to look around on here and see if I can find something similar. Essentially, kugah is a fruity crumb cake... she uses blackberries and I think confectioners sugar is in it, but it has nearly the same density(a smidgen lighter, I think baking powder is in it) as this wonderful cranberry cake only with that nummy crumbly stuff on the top. I'll have to ask her to show me how to make it. Anyway, thank you so so much for sharing this. It was awesome!

[westfw]

Um. No leavening at all (baking soda, baking powder)? Or did you use self-rising flour; it doesn't look THAT dense...

[lisarea]

Nope, there really is no leavening in it. It is very dense. You can cut a slice and eat it like a piece of pizza or something, and it won't fall apart. It's probably not even officially a cake, but I don't know what else to call it. I'll try a baking powder version next time, though.

[westfw]

that really looks quite good. Extra points for creative use of leftovers!

[LasVegas]

Looks great! I think I've got some leftover relish. Hmmm... Need to go buy a lemon!

[lisarea]

You could probably use an orange instead, or even leave that out. I do like the lemon, but it's the buttery, dense cake that really complements the cranberry.