Hello, Friends!

Thanksgiving was just last week, but the only post-Thanksgiving item I have left in my refrigerator is lots of cranberry sauce.

I can get crazy with the amounts of fresh cranberry sauce I make each year.  The flavors of orange, nuts, raisins, and tangy cranberries have, in my eyes, more uses than just with turkey.  It’s so good on everything!  I couldn’t stop wondering how perfect it would be for my sour cream coffee cake and help rescue me from my cranberry sauce leftovers.

This is a lovely light and moist cake filled with dollops of chocolate, studded with tangy cranberries, and topped with a sweet cinnamon sugar almond topping.  Be rescued with my delicious Cranberry Sauce Chocolate Marbled Coffee Cake!

Meet ya in the kitchen!

For the Cake:

1 cup semisweet chocolate (chips or 6oz of squares)

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

 

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoon butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup sour cream

1 cup fresh/canned cranberry sauce

For the Topping:

2/3 cup toasted chopped almonds

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10 x 4-inch tube pan with removable bottom.

Melt the chocolate in a microwave oven or in a small, heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring often.  Remove from the heat.

Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.  Stir to mix well.

In a medium saucepan, warm the cranberry sauce over medium-low heat, stirring until softened.  Set aside.

In a large bowl. beat the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer or a stand-up mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each.  Scrape the sides of the bowl.  Beat in the almond extract.

Reduce the speed to low.  Add about one-third of the flour mixture and, not waiting until it is completely mixed in,  add about one-third of the sour cream.  Continue until all the flour and sour cream have been added mixing only until blended.

Spread about half of the batter in the prepared pan.  Drop melted chocolate in spoonfuls over the batter and spread gently with a rubber spatula.  Sprinkle with about half of the nuts.  Drop the remaining batter on the top of the nuts and spread gently.  Lastly, dollop the cranberry sauce and remaining almonds on top.

 

 

To create a marbled or swirled effect, hold a table knife upright in the batter, almost touching the bottom of the pan.  Make zigzag “cuts” through the batter from side to side all the way around the pan.

 

 

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour.  Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Cut around the edge of the cake (and tube, too) with a knife to loosen.  Remove the pan sides.  Let the cake cool completely before removing from the pan bottom.

Bake a little joy!

Thanks for stopping by…

Eileen~