While a few late season pears and apples continue to trickle onto the local supermarket shelves, by and large autumn's fruit harvest is behind us. As the last wisps of faux cobwebs and suddenly smooshy pumpkins are removed from the front porch, one notices an icy wind rush to greet their cardigan clad arms. The official start of winter may still be more than a month away, but already the telltale signs of the next season are upon us.
Where just last week we were up to our eyeballs in candy corn, caramel apples, and pumpkin shaped sugar cookies, today one's thoughts can't help but shift towards Thanksgiving (if you live in the US), which falls on November 28th this year, and further down the road a little ways, Christmas. With November comes foods laden with hearty flavours and scents, ingredients all but forgotten during summer's blazing reign of warmth, now become beloved dinner table companions once more.
Once supper wraps up and a hankering for something sweet sets in, out are the light and airy Italian ices, angel food cakes, and pastel hued macarons of the past few months, and in their place come everything from gingerbread cookies to stewed fruit, rum balls to pecan pie - and of course, plenty of desserts teaming with cranberries.
It is this mainstay of the cold weather culinary repertoire which shines like the jewel that it is in today's super easy, wonderfully tasty vintage Holiday Topsy-Turvy Cranberry Cake (so called because, much like a pineapple upside-down cake, the fruit goes into the pan first, followed by the cake batter, then the whole shebang is turned right-side up with the cranberries on top once it has finished baking).
{Perfect for everything from Thanksgiving Day breakfast to a mid-afternoon coffee break on Boxing Day, this quick to prepare, economical vintage cranberry cake recipe is a fun mid-century take on one of the best flavours of the season. Image source.}
Other than swapping out the lard for butter, margarine, or a vegan margarine substitute (just depending on the crowd I was baking for), I wouldn't do much to this recipe at all. It's lovely - pleasingly tart and sweet in the same forkful - as it is.
For those, like me, who need to go the gluten-free route, sub in your favourite GF white or golden cake mix (I used two boxes of Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Golden Cake Mix when I made this recipe last and it delivered the perfect amount of batter for a pan of approximately the same size as the one indicated here) or homemade white cake recipe instead.
One thought that occurred to me though (not to contradict what I just said about leaving things as they are) is that, if you were making this recipe at a different time of year, such as for July 4th, is that you could swirl some blueberries through with the cranberries for a patriotic/festive red, white and blue upside-down cake. The colour palette would of course work great for celebrations in those countries (such as France and the UK) that have flags in these same hues.
With US Thanksgiving (we had ours back on October 14th here in Canada) and Christmas little more than a snowball's throw away however, I'll stick with just the cranberries for now - save perhaps unless a few pomegranate seeds - another treasured cold weather fruit - want to make their way into the mix for an extra dose of red-as-Rudolph's nose festive fruit fun.
Speaking of important celebrations this season, I want to take a moment to wish each of you a peaceful, lovely Remembrance Day or Veteran's Day tomorrow, depending on which side of the 49th you live.
This is a truly important day and one which I think those of us with a deeply rooted passion for the 1940s are especially in tune with, as we know and honour the sacrifices and triumphs made by all those that fought - whether on the battlefield or home front - to ensure freedom would reign supreme continually through our devotion to the history of this unforgettable era the whole year round.
