It’s the end of November and here I am, still clenching onto the last few days of Autumn. If it were up to me, it would be pumpkin season all year ’round but I guess making room for peppermint hot chocolate, sugar cookies, and gingerbread isn’t too bad of a trade-off either.
But since I can’t control the seasons and change is inevitable, I decided to accept it and create the perfect treat to send the pumpkin spice season off right.
And this moist pumpkin cranberry cake laced with tart cranberries was just the thing I needed.
I’ve had a bag of fresh organic cranberries leftover from making cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving sitting in my fridge for a while now because I haven’t been able to figure out what I wanted to do with it.
I’ve thought about making muffins with them but I’ve been making a lot of those lately and I think that lil’ bun and brother deer are tired of them by now. Haha, I guess that’s the downside of living with a baker blogger…on one hand, you always get to have treats around the house…and on the other, you end up getting sick of them because you have them ever so often!
New technique!
Anyways, unlike most of the cakes I’ve made before, I decided to brush maple syrup on top of this one because I’ve recently found out from my latest food network binge session that brushing a syrup of sorts on top of a cake, helps keep all it’s moisture locked in so it doesn’t dry out on the inside!
Goodness what a discovery this was for me because the cake stayed moist for the next couple of days! With that being said…I can’t really account for more than 2 days because it was all gobbled up by then but I’m sure that it would still stay moist for quite a while still thereafter.
Have you used this technique before? If so, how did it work for you?
Pumpkin cranberry cake recipe
Ingredients (one 6″ x 8″ cake):
1 cup whole wheat flour (feel free to use all purpose)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs (or 2 tablespoons ground flax + 1/3 cup water)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cups cranberries
1/3 cup maple syrup
Method
1. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.
2. Stir in the sugar, eggs, vanilla, oil and pumpkin puree until just combined.
3. Fold in the cranberries.
4. Pour the batter into a lined or greased baking pan. Bake at 350F for 45 – 50 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the middle.
5. Using the toothpick from earlier, poke holes into the top of the cake. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes and brush the top and sides of the cake with the maple syrup. Let the syrup soak into the cake and let the loaf cool for another 5 minutes before cutting into it and serving.
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Pumpkin and cranberry is such a delicious combination. This cake looks great, thank you for sharing with us at FF this week!
Looks like a perfect pumpkin season goodbye 😀 Looks and sounds so delicious!
Haha, I’m not ready to let go of it yet! I just baked up another batch this morning…who doesn’t love cake for breakfast? 😉
Haha awesome!
Gorgeous recipe. It sounds so delicious.
Thank you Julie!
Superb recipe. Thanks for sharing this with us.
I made your fantastic creation & loved every bite, so did my hubby Peter! xx