Cranberry Shortcake

I love having a super stocked freezer, and I love daydreaming about having a box freezer one day, where I don’t need to worry about quarts of frozen soup and bags of blueberries from last June falling on to my feet. But because I live in an apartment and have the top half freezer, and I insist on keeping my ice cream maker in there in case of ice cream emergency, well, space is at a premium. On occasion, we have to do a sweep of the freezer and start eating. Like when a package arrives from my mother-in-law with fifteen boxes of girl scout cookies and some of those will have to fit in the freezer.

With yesterday’s snow day from work (I, no lie, hopped up and down when I heard the prerecorded message on my office’s weather hotline), I did some freezer sweeping and decided I would use up the 6 ounces of frozen cranberries I had in residence, along with the half a cup of bran flakes (though, not in the same recipe). I’m not a huge fan of layer cakes, I think the frosting does me in, but I am a huge fan of coffee cakes. The thick crumble on the top, the hidden layers of fruit, the moistness of the cake… so I decided to make a cranberry vanilla coffee cake I had spied on Smitten Kitchen, courtesy of Gourmet.

It was a terribly easy recipe that went incredibly wrong for me, and then did a full 360 and came out so right…

I made the vanilla sugar by processing sugar and the scrapings from half a vanilla bean, and set it aside to dish out throughout the recipe. I processed cranberries (defrosted) and vanilla sugar. I creamed butter and vanilla sugar. I went to the fridge to get eggs and returned with milk (please note: foreshadowing) and added milk and the flour mixture in alternating batches. I layered the cake batter and cranberry mixture in a 9 inch cake pan, and then read the instructions for the crumble topping: Combine the remaining ¼ c. of vanilla sugar with 1 tablespoon of butter… huh? I have way more than a quarter cup left… uh oh.

I only added half a cup of sugar to the butter instead of a full cup.

But that’s okay, I decided. I would add a little extra sugar to the crumbly topping and it will come out fine. So in the oven it went.

About halfway through the baking time, I had a sudden thought. Why weren’t there any eggs in that recipe? Then I remembered—there were two eggs. I had just completely forgotten to add them. I had gone to the fridge for them, but instead returned with the milk.

The cake came out of the oven and it looked delicious, but I figured it was bound for the trash as soon as it cooled. But at the last minute, I cut a little sliver, and know what? It was delicious. It was not a coffee cake—the texture was that of shortcake biscuits, kind of like a scone. But it worked against the vanilla sweetness of the topping and the tart sweet cranberry filling.

I would like to make this again the way the recipe intended, but my husband has already asked me to always forget the eggs and extra sugar. So, this isn’t a coffee cake recipe I’m providing, but a cranberry shortcake recipe. If you would like to make the coffee cake version, follow this recipe instead.

Cranberry Vanilla Shortcake

Adapted from Gourmet, December 2008

1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups fresh or thawed frozen cranberries (6 ounces)

2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 2 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened, divided

1/2 cup whole milk

Confectioners sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle. Generously butter a 9- by 2-inch round cake pan.

Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into a food processor with tip of a paring knife. Add sugar and pulse to combine. Transfer to a bowl.

Pulse cranberries with 1/2 cup vanilla sugar in processor until finely chopped.

Whisk together 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together 1 stick butter and 1/2 cup vanilla sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour, until just combined.

Spread half of batter in pan, then spoon cranberries over it, leaving a 1/2-inch border around edge. Spoon small bits of the remaining batter over the top of the cranberries and smooth them with as gentle of a hand as possible.

Blend remaining vanilla sugar with 2 tablespoon of butter and 1 Tbs flour using your fingertips. Crumble over top of cake.

Bake until a wooden pick inserted into cake (not into cranberry filling) comes out clean and side begins to pull away from pan (begin checking after 30 minutes). Cool in pan 30 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely, crumb side up.

This stayed fresh for about three days at room temperature, tightly wrapped. I can't vouch for anything beyond that because we ate it all in three days.