Orange Cranberry Layer Cake

A wacky cake variation with orange enhanced cake, tart cranberry orange sauce filling, and sweet orange buttercream frosting

Cake shown w/3 layers and orange zest decoration

 

This is my second favorite holiday dessert after pumpkin pie. It smells so good while it’s baking that I find myself rushing thru the frosting-making to hurry up and put it all together. My oldest son is not a big fan of cranberries (yet! a mom can be an optimist) but he really likes the orange cake by itself. This recipe is flexible – if you’re not that into cranberries or if you don’t have any sauce leftover, you can simplify the cake by adding dried cranberries into the batter and/or just go pure orange with the cake & frosting. But if you’d like to be a bit fancy and if you like the orange/cranberry combo as much as I do, try out the full recipe and let me know what you think. I’m still a beginning baker…. so I’m still figuring out the finer points of layering and frosting cakes and my results are a bit different every time I make it. My cranberry orange sauce is on the tart side, so my orange frosting is quite sweet.  My final results still don’t look anything like a bakery style cake, but it tastes quite good anyway.

Cake shown with 2 layers and cranberry decoration

 

Ever the researcher, I looked into the history of cranberries yesterday. I was surprised to find that cranberries, along with blueberries, are indigent to North America. Not surprisingly, many Native American tribes used them in their cooking and introduced cranberries to European settlers. Today, cranberries are a huge part of Wisconsin agriculture. A century ago the cranberries were harvested by hand with rakes and baskets. Men, women & children participated. Then crates of berries were put on railroads and sent to processing plants. Nowadays over 90% of the harvesting is all mechanized. The Wisconsin Historical Society has a collection of b&w prints featuring past cranberry harvests. I really like this one, circa 1900: 

PHOTO CREDIT: Charles van Schaick, WI Historical Society, Title: "Ho-Chunk and European American Group Cranberry Harvesting," Black River Falls, WI. All rights reserved.

Given that November is Native American Heritage Month, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank our Native Nations for sharing their food, culture and history.  I have a deep appreciation for the native traditions and customs that I have learned about so far, especially in regards to shamans, healing rituals, dances, and reverence for the earth.

For a blend of the past and the present, check out this historical cookbook - Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking by Martin Jacobs & Beverly Cox.  It features 150 recipes “…from across the United States, incorporating many indigenous ingredients and traditional dishes from the Cherokee, Chippewa, Navajo, Sioux, Mohegan, Iroquois, Comanche, Hopi, and many other North American tribes. Each chapter is introduced by an expert on the region and discusses the cultures of major tribal groups, their diets, their ceremonial use of food, and the historic dishes they developed.” (I don’t own this book yet; it’s on my wish list.)

PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon via Native-American-Online.org Trading Post

 

For current news and issues of importance, check out Indian Country Today Media Network . This news website features articles and commentary on a wide variety of topics from breaking stories to debunking historical inaccuracies, to politics, the environment, and entertainment stories. I recommend this article “Talking to Young Children About Thanksgiving,” which not only breaks down the stereotypes of the typical “first” thanksgiving story, but offers resources with suggestions for teaching culture. 

And now to baking…

Orange, zest, microplaner, cake batter

Orange Cranberry Layer Cake

A variation on an egg-free, dairy-free wacky cake – orange juice serves in place of vinegar and fizzy water flavored with orange essence adds a burst of natural flavor with no added sugar or calories

ORANGE CAKE

Ingredients:

1½ cups whole wheat pastry flour

¾ cup confectioners (powdered) sugar

½ tsp ginger

1/8 tsp cardamom

½ tsp sea salt

¼ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

5 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp orange juice

1 tsp cherry extract

1 cup fizzy water with orange essence*

Zest from ½ orange

*NOTE: sparkling water; you can make your own using a Soda Stream carbonator, or similar device, or you can buy a bottle of orange flavored carbonated water from any grocery store.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°. This is an important first step as you want to get the batter into the oven as quickly after mixing as possible for maximum rising.

Grease a round, glass baking dish (I use butter. Or you could also use a round, metal nonstick pan).

In a mixing bowl, measure out and dump in all your dry ingredients in this order: flour, sugar, spices, salt, baking powder & baking soda. Using a long tined fork or a whisk, mix together well.

Now make a well in the center of the dry mix. Carefully measure out and pour in the oil. On top of oil, carefully measure out and pour in the orange juice. On top of oj, carefully measure out and pour in the extract.

Measure out the fizzy water and pour it slowly but all at once into the bowl.

Mix or whisk briskly to form a bubbly batter, a tad thicker than pancake consistency. I prefer not to leave streaks of flour (uncooked flour = zero taste) but be careful not to get over zealous in stirring or the cake will be tough. Regardless, the wacky cake batter is denser than typical bakery cakes.

Lightly fold in the orange zest. Pour batter into greased baking dish.

Pop into the hot oven and bake for ~ 30 minutes. Cake is done when it is set and toothpick comes out pretty clean – crumbs are OK, glob of batter is not. Should be lightly browned.

Let the cake sit for 5 minutes or so, and then gently turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

ORANGE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

Ingredients:

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

2 Tbsp butter (room temp)

1 Tbsp orange juice

1/8 – ¼ tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup confectioners sugar

Zest from ½ orange (can fold into frosting before spreading or sprinkle over top of cake for decorating)

Directions:

Beat butter. Then add in ¾ cup sugar and beat to incorporate. (I use a hand immersion blender, with the deep cup accessory.)

Beat in orange juice and extract.

Gradually beat in remainder of sugar. Use as much sugar as desired for spreading consistency and level of sweetness. Frosting should be creamy and thick, thicker than a glaze.

Once frosting is consistency you desire, fold in zest if desired. Set frosting aside and follow directions for assembling the layer cake. This quantity should cover the top and top sides of the cake.

*TIP: for easy clean up of frosting – just run really hot water and rinse everything as soon as the cake is iced. The hot water melts the butter/sugar.

Fresh cranberries simmered in orange juice, sweetened with orange marmalade, mandarin orange sections, and craisins

CHUNKY CRANBERRY ORANGE SAUCE

See previous recipe here 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Directions for assembling the layer cake:

Once the cake is cool, carefully use a long bread knife to slice the cake into 2 equal parts. Gingerly remove the top, then place the bottom on a large plate or cake platter. 

NOTE: The cake does not rise very much, so layers will be thin. This recipe was designed for a single cake with 2 layers. To get more layers, consider baking two cakes. My photo at the top was staged by cutting a single cake in half and then stacking for 3 layers. I'm not advanced enough to try 4 layers! And I think you'd need extra frosting. But feel free to experiment. 

Using a Tablespoon, spoon and spread the chunky Orange-Cranberry relish onto the bottom layer. Try to distribute a generous but even layer.

NOTE: this picture is showing 1/2 the bottom to display the thickness of cake and sauce. Your cake will be a full round.

Gingerly place top layer on top of relished layer.

Cover top and sides of cake with orange buttercream frosting.

This is a fully iced, unsliced 2 layer cake

 

If desired, sprinkle orange zest on top of cake for decoration and added flavor.

VEGAN VERSION: replace butter with margarine or other solid, nondairy fat.

ALLERGENS: contains wheat, dairy, corn (confectioners sugar typically contains cornstarch)

ALLERGY ACCOMMODATIONS: replace wheat with gluten-free baking flour; replace dairy by using solid margarine; if you can’t find corn-free confectioners sugar, try this recipe by grinding regular sugar and root starch in a blender

Chunky Cranberry Orange Sauce

Fresh and dried berries flavored with tangerine and orange

The finished sauce

Bright berries floating in orange juice

Just in time for Thanksgiving this week, I’m sharing my tart and chunky version of cranberry sauce. I was surprised how easy it is to make cranberry sauces from scratch – no more store bought for me. I also find it fun as the cranberries vary quite a bit in sizes and colors – I enjoy handling the berries and admiring the full range of reds from speckled white to pink to coral to bright red to deep, dark crimson or burgundy. Cranberries are eye candy to me.

I always make this side a day or two in advance. Stores well in the fridge in an airtight container. Making this gets me in the mood for Thanksgiving in general and specifically for more food prep and the heavier cooking to come later in the week. I feel good about crossing something off on my long to-do list. I also like admiring the jewel-like color every time I open the fridge. In addition to serving up with my turkey feast, I also use this sauce as a filling for my Orange Cranberry Wacky Cake, with orange buttercream frosting. Part of my leftovers routine – just as we’re finishing the last of the vegan pumpkin pie we can move on to this sweet treat. I’ll post that recipe shortly.

This cranberry sauce recipe is very flexible. And does not utilize traditional sugar. I like my sauce a bit on the tart and tangy side, not too sweet. The berries get some sweetness from simmering in orange juice, most sweetness from mixing in orange marmalade, and some sweetness from tangerine chunks & craisins, which also add texture. If you like a sweeter sauce, you can either mix in additional orange marmalade at the end or you can add sugar into the orange juice to dissolve at the beginning. I was specifically trying to go lower sugar and before knowing any better, actually believed that simmering in orange juice would add sufficient sweetener. Optimist that I am. After one mouth puckering reality check, I can assure you that cranberries are even more sour that you may have thought. Extra sweetener is essential! I love orange marmalade and almost always have some in my pantry so it was an immediate fix. It’s already thick, sticky, sweet and has the added bonus of orange rind – no need for zesting. 

And while we’re still on the topic of cranberries, check out this light hearted and humorous holiday picture book, Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende & Harry Devlín. The story takes place on Thanksgiving Day, by a cranberry bog, features a feast, a robbery & a chase, and includes a recipe for “grandmother’s famous” cranberry bread. Delightful read aloud.

Chunky Cranberry Orange Sauce

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh cranberries

1 cup orange juice

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 cup tangerine sections, chopped (or 1 can mandarin oranges, drained and broken up with fork)

1/2 cup dried cranberries

2-4 Tbsps orange marmalade – to taste

Directions:

• Measure out and sort the berries. Pick out and discard any with obvious bruises or any puckering. Cranberry sizes and coloring will vary widely, but all should be very firm to the touch with little to no give at all. Soft or mushy berries should be thrown out.

• Pour cranberries into saucepan. Cover with orange juice. Add vinegar. Swirl around in the pan. Bring up to medium heat so there is bubbling around the edges.

Cranberries & OJ

Cranberries popping & sauce brownish

Finished sauce, thick & crimson

•  Simmer for ~15-20 mins. Swirl the pan occasionally or stir with a wooden spoon. Cranberries will start popping and breaking down as the juice reduces and thickens. The mixture will start out as distinctly separate – cranberries floating in orange juice. As the cranberries start to pop, the color will turn brownish. As the cranberries break down and the OJ reduces, the color will change to deep dark crimson. Consistency should get thicker, like a jam. When done, a wooden spoon scraped across the bottom of the pan will reveal a clean bottom and fill back in slowly. Stay close to the pan for the last 5-10 mins of simmering to stir frequently and assess for doneness.

• Take off heat. Stir in orange sections, break up with fork or spoon for smaller chunks. Stir in dried cranberries.

• Add in 2 Tbsp of orange marmalade. When cool enough to taste, sample a little. If not quite sweet enough, keep adding orange marmalade to taste.

Chill. Serve as a side to accompany turkey or veggies.

ALLERGY INFO: contains none of the top 8 allergens

Pumpkin Pork Pasty

Seasonal Variation on a Cornish Pasty

This little project has many steps and may seem a bit complicated, but it really isn’t. And the delicious result will very much be worth a little extra work! If you’re not up to making dough, or are looking for a gluten-free entrée, the Pumpkin Pork Pie filling can be covered in mashed potatoes for a seasonal Shepherd’s Pie instead. (see directions for the Shepherd’s Pie at very end of post.)

I came up with this idea after my Pumpkin Butter recipe yielded more than I was expecting. I wondered what else I could do to make the most of that spicy pumpkin flavor. Could it work in something savory? What if I substituted the pumpkin butter for something that used a tangy tomato sauce? Could that work? And then I thought of one of my ultimate comfort foods – Canadian Pork Pie. Since the pumpkin butter is highly spiced and there is an overlap in the spices I would use in my savory pork pie, this seemed like a great starting point for my culinary curiosity. I have Canadian family, in addition to my Scottish roots, so I was introduced to meat pies as a kid. But I didn’t try making my own pork pie until I was in high school. I loved how the recipe called for so many spices and scented the whole house as the meat filling simmered. I made it for a couple years and then forgot about it until I moved to New England. There is a strong contingent of French Canadians in the Manchester, NH area and pork pies were available for sale everywhere. Yum! I sampled many delicious versions and then dug out my recipe. I now make pork pie every winter. For this seasonal variation, I added a dice of sweet potatoes and parsnips into the meat filling, along with a little sage, and replaced stewed tomatoes with pumpkin butter. The spices in the pumpkin butter worked perfectly and the consistency also worked great.

From pie to pasty idea…

I am originally from Michigan and pasties are quite common now in the Midwest. Without knowing the historical background I considered them tasty, portable potpies. And as a novice baker who has never made her own piecrust before, somehow smaller rounds of pastry seemed like they would be easier to deal with. And once I started thinking about a patsy, I just couldn't stop wanting one! So I popped onto the computer to look up pasty dough recipes. The first one that caught my eye was from British chef-extraordinaire Jamie Oliver. He has a chicken “cowboy” pasty recipe and a most forgiving and tasty crust. (For his original recipe click here) I adapted his pasty dough recipe and followed his directions for rolling out, filling & baking the pasties.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons; Cornish pasty w/top cut off to show 2 courses - meat & veg on the left and sweet berries, "the afters" on the right; note decorative coiled crimp in dough)

  

Little History on the Cornish Pasty

Cornwall, England is the home of the original pasty and there are historical references to it going back to the 13^th Century. (See The Cornish Pasty Association website for more details.) Stateside, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is renowned for their Pasty passion. Cornish tin miners settled in the area in the 1800’s and became American copper miners. Currently the pasty can be found throughout the Midwest and other farther flung states, even in Florida. The original Cornish pasty was made with potato, swede (rutabega), and onion – meat came later. The pasty was the primary lunch for miners and farmers, offering a complete, compact & convenient meal. There are stories of large pasties with savory fillings at one end and sweet fillings at the other, to include dessert too - commonly called "the afters" - see photo above. And versions nowadays contain vegetable only, meat & vegetable, or sweets. An authentic Cornish pasty is always D-shaped, with an elaborate crimped border, and darkly browned glaze. (For a video demonstrating how the Cornish make them, click here) Since I am an absolute beginner with pastry – just bought my first rolling pin for this recipe! – my version has fork crimping. If you are more practiced and comfortable with dough, then hand crimping is the way to go.

One story behind the D-shape of the pasty suggests that it served as a handle for tin miners; they ate up to the crimping and then threw that part away as their hands were likely covered in arsenic. And soot. The tossed crusts had another purpose as well. According to folklore, many Cornish miners believed in "Tommyknockers" and appeased them by sharing parts of their lunch. (See Daryl Burkhard’s fun facts website here for more on Cornish mining superstitions.) Depending upon the source the "knockers" were either “small, dwarf-like creatures who made strange noises as they worked deep in the rocks,” or they were spirits of miners who had perished in the shafts, or they were souls who weren’t quite good enough for heaven but not quite bad enough for hell and were therefore trapped to work in the mine for eternity. Regardless of their origins, "Tommyknockers" were generally considered to bring good luck – sometimes warning of cave-ins or leading a miner to a rich vein. 

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons; Tamarack Miners, Copper Country, Michigan, 1905 - note metal lunch pails)

Now on to the cooking & baking!

You can make the filling or the pasty dough first. The filling needs to cool a bit before handling and the dough needs to chill for 30 minutes before rolling out. Do NOT scrimp on the fat in the pasty dough – you will need every bit for both moisture and taste.

Step 1: Pumpkin Pork Pie Filling

Ingredients:

1-2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 med white onion, minced

1 lb ground pork

1 cup pumpkin butter (see my recipe for easy homemade pumpkin butter here)

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium sweet potatoes, fine dice

1 medium parsnip, fine dice

¼ coarse salt

½ tsp dried sage

½ tsp black pepper

½ cup boiling water + ¼ cube of Celefibr vegetarian chicken bouillion (or ½ cup hot chicken broth)

½ Tbsp dried parsely

2 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions:

In deep sided skillet, sauté onion in olive oil, stirring with wooden spoon. Add in ground pork and brown the meat, breaking up with fork.

Add in pumpkin butter and mix in with wooden spoon to coat meat/onion mixture.

Add in garlic, sweet potatoes, and parsnips and stir to equally distribute thru mixture. Season with salt, pepper & sage. Cover and simmer over lower heat for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. You want the pumpkin butter to thicken a bit and the veggies to be fork tender. Mixture should stay moist.

Measure out hot water, drop in bouillion cube. Stir briskly w/long tined fork to encourage quick dissolving. Measure out the cornstarch and add evenly to broth, immediately mix vigorously to discourage any lumps. Measure out dried parsely, add to broth/starch mixture and stir vigorously.

When meat mixture is done simmering, check for doneness of potatoes & parsnips. If tender, add in broth/starch combination. Stir to incorporate. Cook for a few more minutes to thicken the sauce. Overall pumpkin sauce should be thick and moist, without being runny.

Remove mixture from heat and allow to cool a bit while you prepare next cooking steps.

VEGETARIAN OR VEGAN VERSION: leave out pork; substitute with vegetable broth. Could add soy protein crumbles to sub the meat. Or experiment with adding beans, lentils, squash or other veggies to get same volume for filling.

ALLERGENS: pork, corn

ALLERGY ACCOMMODATIONS: To replace pork, you could use beef or ground turkey, or see vegetarian suggestions above. To eliminate corn use another thickening agent like tapioca or potato starch.

Butter & water boiling

Pasty dough coming together in pot

Step 2: Pasty Dough

Adapted from Jamie’s America Cookbook

Ingredients:

1 flax “egg” (1 Tbsp ground flaxmeal + 3 Tbsp water)

1¼ cups water (300mL, 10 oz)

2 sticks butter + 2 Tbsp

4 cups wholewheat pastry flour

½ cup cornmeal

1 tsp sea salt

Directions:

Prepare flax “egg.” Cut parchment paper to fit a large cooking sheet, set aside.

Tablespoon of flaxmeal stirred into water

Flaxmeal after sitting & thickening

In a large pot bring water up to a boil, drop in butter. Once butter is melted, take off heat.

Using a spatula stir in flour gradually (1 cup at a time) and salt (1/4 tsp at a time) incorporating dry & wet ingredients to combine into dough. Add the ½ cup of cornmeal at the end. Mixture should come together smoothly, if still a bit crumbly.

Turn out dough onto floured, flat surface. Using your hands, knead a bit and shape dough into a large ball. Depending on humidity (and kitchen goddess) factors you may need to add a bit more water or flour to get a malleable, moist but not sticky dough.

Refrigerate the dough, in a plastic-wrapped bowl, for 30 minutes. (Jamie Oliver recommends flouring the bowl and top of the dough ball.)

 

Step 3: Pumpkin Pork Pasty

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Pork pie filling, cooked

Pasty Dough, chilled

1 flax “egg,” gelled

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Roll out dough into 6½” rounds. I used an upside down ceramic cereal bowl and cut the dough around it. Then I transferred the dough from cutting board to parchment paper, carefully, using a spatula. The dough is quite forgiving of handling, so feel free to knead it again as necessary to reform a ball shape for rolling out.

dough round

brushed with flax "egg" and filled

Use pastry brush to brush the top of pasty with some of the flax “egg.” Use a tablespoon to mound meat mixture toward center of one half. Fold over the dough to form ½ circle and seal edges with fork tines.

Brush top liberally with some of the flax “egg.” The bits of flax meal spread out in a pretty pattern and add a bit of moisture, although you likely won’t get the same browning you would with an actual egg-wash. If you are not dealing with dairy allergies, you could do a milk wash to promote browning.

Repeat the process to fill up your cooking tray or trays. I got 8 pasties using all my dough. (And had enough pumpkin pork pie filling left for a medium size shepherd’s pie.)

Cook on parchment lined baking sheet for ~20 minutes until browned on bottom. May not brown too much on top. Serve hot or transfer from sheet to cookie rack to cool.

*Suggest reheating in oven to maintain crispness of crust. Reheating in the microwave will remove any hint of crispness and will dry out the pasty quite a bit.

VEGAN VERSION: use vegetable oil or margarine instead of butter

ALLERGENS: dairy (butter), wheat, corn

ALLERGY ACCOMMODATIONS: To eliminate wheat, use a gluten-free flour. To replace dairy (butter) use solid margarine or vegetable oil. To eliminate corn, leave out cornmeal. Plain water also works for getting the dough to stick to itself.

Pumpkin Pork Shepherd's Pie w/flax & paprika

Pumpkin Pork Shepherd's Pie serving

Alternate Step 3: Pumpkin Pork Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Pork Pie filling, cooked

Mashed potatoes, cooked

Regular or Smoked Paprika

Optional – 1 flax “egg”, gelled

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Pour meat mixture into 10 x 13 casserole dish. Spread evenly.

Distribute mashed potatoes evenly over the top. Take a fork and rake over the potatoes to create some peaks for better browning. (Optional – use a pastry brush and dab on some “flax egg” for a little extra fiber and color.) Sprinkle paprika over the top.

Bake in 400°F oven for 20 minutes, until golden on top and bubbling around the edges.