Two Thanksgiving recipes

Thank you all for the kind words about my baking: I owe it all to Sara Lee!

Candy's Pound Cake

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup milk
3 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
5 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Cream together the cream cheese and butter; add sugar and mix until thoroughly blended. Then add milk, vanilla, and eggs. Follow with the flour and baking powder. Bake in springform pan or in an angel food pan at 350 degrees for 1 hour.


Cranberry Upside-Down Cake
Maida Heatter

12 ounces (4 cups) fresh cranberries
5 ounces (1 1/4 sticks butter) at room temp.
1 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, large
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup milk
finely grated rind of 1 large orange (I used a clementine!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You will need a 9 by 1 1/2 inch layer cake pan.

Using 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) of the butter, spread a bit on the sides of the pan and then spread the rest on the bottom of the pan. It should coat the pan. Sprinkle 1/2 cup plus the 2 tablespoons of sugar over the butter. Sprinkle the cranberries over the sugar. It's alot.

Beat the remaining 3/4 stick of butter until soft. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Then, on lowest speed, add the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt alternately with the milk until just combined. By hand add the rind.

Smooth the top.

Bake for 1 hour, the top will become brown while baking ( I baked it for 50 minutes).

Cool the cake in the pan. After 10 minutes run a knife around the edges to loosen. Ten minutes after (twenty in total) run the knife again. Then cover the cake with a flat cake plate, hold the pan and the plate firmly, and turn them both over. I knock it twice (for good luck) and remove the pan. If any of the cranberries stick to pan and not cake I just loosen them with the knife and place on the cake.

Maida adds lots of other instructions. She glazes the cake with red currant jelly, which is warmed to melt, and puts it on the cranberries so they glisten. She makes a ricotta cheese cream to serve with. She also likes vanilla ice cream with the cake. Anything Maida likes is okay by me. I once wrote her a letter and asked if she would be my second mother. She said she would think about it. We have a few Maida Heatter cook books in the library. They should be treasured!

If you make either cake, leave a comment and let me know how they turn out.
Happy Thanksgiving
Nancy