For Thanksgiving, people always put so much time and effort into making a nice, home-cooked feast for their family. But when it comes to the cranberry sauce, what do they do? They plop some goop in the shape of a can down on a plate.
It doesn't have to be this way! Whole cranberry sauce with fresh cranberries is one of the easiest things you can make for Thanksgiving. It really takes very little effort and the cranberries are inexpensive. So please, this year, don't buy that can of cranberry sauce. Make your cranberry sauce from scratch. It is so much more delicious.
This recipe is not from any cookbook, it's just something I know by heart. It's pretty much what is printed on the package of cranberries, although I would like to give some credit to Adam Carolla because it was from him that I first heard the recipe during his Loveline days.
1 package (12 ounces) fresh cranberries
1/2 cup to 1 cup sugar (depending on how tart you would like it to turn out)
1 cup water
optional ingredients, to taste:
cinnamon
ground cloves
orange zest
honey
Stir sugar and water together in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add cranberries and return to a boil. Reduce heat, add any optional ingredients you would like, and simmer for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat, cover, and let cool. Serve warm or chilled.
Note: You might want to cover it while you're simmering, as well. The popping cranberries can be a little violent at times.
Note 2: If you think your family is not quite ready to make the transition from canned jellied cranberry sauce to homemade whole cranberry sauce, just use a strainer to remove the chunks of cranberries!
Sorry about the lack of updates. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this month and it's eating up most of my free time. Anyway! This cake was meant to be posted around Halloween, but obviously that didn't happen. It's just your basic red velvet cake recipe, but with black food coloring instead of red, and orange food coloring added to the frosting. The recipe is from Beyond Grits and Gravy: The South's All-Time Favorite Recipes, by Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley. I forgot to take a photo of the cover so this is a low quality one from Google Image Search.
By the way, this recipe is to be used with three 8-inch cake pans to make a three-layer cake, but I only had 9-inch cake pans so mine was only a two-layer. I had to add a little extra baking time and I used the excess frosting to frost the sides of the cake, but other than that I didn't make any changes and there was no leftover batter. So if you're in a similar situation, just add an extra 10 minutes or so to the baking time, and it should come out perfect!
Cake:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp red food coloring (Or black, or blue, or whatever you want! It's okay to use as much as 1/4 cup of food coloring if you want the color to be richer, or less grey if you're going with black.)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour three 8-inch round cake pans, tapping out any excess flour; set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add food coloring and vanilla; beat until well-blended.
In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt.
Add dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk to creamed mixture, beating well after each addition and ending with dry ingredients.
Scrape batter evenly into three prepared pans, and bake until a cake tester or straw inserted in center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
Let cakes cool in pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.
Icing:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 pound powdered sugar, sifted
food coloring (optional)
In a small bowl with an electric mixer, blend cream cheese and butter until light. Gradually add powdered sugar, a couple of tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition, until fluffy and light.
To assemble cake, place 1 layer on a cake plate and spread 1/3 of frosting over top. Repeat with remaining layers and remaining frosting; do not frost sides of cake.
(I'm a sloppy cake-slicer.)
