Cranberry Upside Down Cake

I found this recipe for "Cranberry Upside-Down Cake" in Nov 09 Cooking light magazine. It looked good but needed some tweaking as its recipe ingredients were light on flavor too. I added in Cinnamon for that proper Holiday taste and smell. I also added some coarse chopped walnuts to finish off the cake, I mean those two play so well together why not add a little to the cake and make it more festive.

To make up for the added fat calories from the nuts I swapped out nonfat milk for the 1%. Not much of a savings, but every little bit helps. I also noted that this was a cake made with whipped egg whites for part of the fluff so I subbed in cake flour for a softer crumb than the all purpose.

I didn't reinvent the wheel, I just rounded it out. My version....

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

Topping

• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 scant cups fresh cranberry
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1/3 c coarse chopped walnuts

Cake

• 1/2 c unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 c cake flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 cup bakers sugar (also labeled super fine or ultra fine)
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 large egg whites
• pinch cream of tartar
• 1/2 c nonfat milk
• 1 t vanilla.
• 1 t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F

Put butter and brown sugar in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave 1 minute and stir until sugar dissolved. Microwave additional 30-45 seconds until mixture starts to boil. Spray sides of 9 inch cake pan with baking spray. Pour in hot brown sugar mixture, roll pan to coat bottom well. Toss cranberries with 1 teaspoon cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over the hot sugar, pat softly until in one even layer. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

For the cake cream the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add egg yolks one at a time beating well with each addition. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Add a third of the flour mixture to the batter and fold in slowly, adding 1/2 of the milk. Add another third of the flour and fold in slowly, adding remaining milk. Add remaining flour and stir until well mixed.

Mix egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar (in copper bowl if you have one for maximum volume). Beat on high until stiff peaks form. Add half of the egg whites to the batter and fold in briskly to incorporate all of the egg white and lighten the batter. Take remaining egg whites and gently fold in by hand until just incorporated.

Spoon batter over the cranberry mixture. Bake on middle rack about 55 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.