Name: Cranberry Snack Cake
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 9
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 1/3 cup vegetable oil; 2 large room temperature eggs; 1 cup buttermilk milk; 2 cups flour; 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 2 cups cranberries

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Cranberry Snack Cake is a quick and delicious cake packed with tart cranberry flavor and a sweet vanilla and almond scented cake. It whips up in no time with fresh or frozen cranberries.

I love snack cakes. They’re quick, easy, and you can make them with almost anything. I have five of them on my blog. I think the pumpkin was my favorite. Or maybe it was the pineapple. That one is really good, too.

What is a snack cake?

For me, it’s not a layered cake. It’s not really even a sheet cake. I make my snack cakes in either an 8 x 8 or a 9 x 12 pan. They’re just a single layer and sometimes there’s icing and sometimes not. Sometimes I sprinkle the top with powdered sugar and sometimes I don’t. Just depends on my mood that day, I guess.

Snacking cakes are also sturdier than a sheet cake or a layer cake. They’re sliced into rectangles and easy to pick up with your hands. They’re a mix between a cake and a quick bread. Snack cakes are typically made with oil and not butter. That way you don’t have to wait for the butter to come to room temperature. It’s a great use for flavored oils. My mom makes a Meyer lemon cake with Meyer lemon scented oil. Or tangerine or lime. You get the point.

What’s in Cranberry Snack Cake?

Well, cranberries for one. I used frozen cranberries, but you can use fresh or even some cranberry relish or jelly. It’s a great way to use up cranberry sauce or jelly. Then there’s pantry ingredients like flour, vanilla and almond extract, and oil. There’s buttermilk in this one, but you can use regular milk. There’s also a couple of room temperature eggs.

I added some sliced almonds and almond extract. I wanted to add another layer of flavor and texture with the cranberries to this snack cake. Feel free to add whatever flavors you want. You can use pistachios instead of almonds. I initially wanted to use pecans, but I ran out. I keep snacking on them. Imagine that! I couldn’t add pecans to the snack cake because I snacked on them.

What are cranberries?

I mean part from those tart red things that appear during the holiday season. What are cranberries? For those that don’t know, they’re an evergreen dwarf shrub sometimes referred to as trailing vines. They grow in shallow beds in areas where the water table is very low.

Some think that the beds remain flooded throughout the year, but that’s not true. During the regular part of the growing season, they’re irrigated like a normal crop. But during fall through winter, they’re flooded. This aids in harvesting the berries and keeps them from freezing in winter.

Cranberries are produced in several parts of the world. But most of them come from Canada, the US, and Chile. Chile? I had no idea. These three countries accounted for 97% of cranberry harvesting in 2020. Chile? That one still amazes me. I guess I need to learn more about Chiles climate.

Cranberries are not just for cranberry sauce. There are dried cranberries, jelly, frozen, and fresh. They’re not really a fruit you want to snack on fresh. If you’ve ever had a fresh one, they’re usually tart. Like pucker your mouth tart. That’s why most of the cranberries harvested are processed into juices, jellies, and sweetened fried cranberries. I used dried cranberries in the Holiday Baked Brie I shared on Monday. I put them in some water with sugar and just let them simmer.

How do you make Cranberry Snack Cake?

It’s so simple. It takes longer to cook than it does to make the batter. First, you cream the oil and sugar together. When it’s light and fluffy, then you add in the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla and almond extracts. The eggs should be room temperature. Otherwise, they might have an effect on the other ingredients in the bowl that are room temperature.

Then you combine the dry ingredients in another bowl. Keep 1 tablespoon of the flour to toss the cranberries in. I whisk my dry ingredients instead of sifting them. I used to sift and think it was required, but the older I get the more I realize a whisk is just time. It breaks up the lumps and aerates the dry ingredients.

Combine the dry with the wet ingredients. Since it’s a quick bread I try not to over mix it. You want the cake to be airy and light. That doesn’t happen if you beat it for a while. So, I keep a mostly hands off attitude. Once most of the dry ingredients are wet then I just let it rest for a minute.

Toss the cranberries in the reserved flour. This supposedly keeps the fruit from falling to the bottom of the cake. I don’t if that’s true, but that’s the theory. I fold in the cranberries after tossing them. Then I let the cake sit for another 5 minutes.

While the batter is chilling, prepare the pan. I used an 8 x 8. Don’t do this. It is a small pan for the batter you will make. If you have a 9 x 9 then use that. Or use a 9 x 12. The recipe is written as is you have a 9 x 12 you’re using.

Once the batter is ready you pour it into the prepared pan. Bake the cake at 350 for at least 40 minutes. Stick a toothpick in the center to see how done it is. You will know if there’s mostly batter on the toothpick. Cook it for an additional 3 to 5 minutes and test it again. You don’t want it to come out clean because then it might be overcooked once it rests.

What does Cranberry Snack Cake taste like?

It’s sweet and tart. There’s a hint of almonds and the crunch of almonds. It’s PACKED with cranberries. And they’re tart which complements the sweet cake. And the cake is tender and moist. So moist! I used frozen berries so that added extra moisture to the cake.

If you want to kick up the flavor, try adding in some orange juice or orange zest. That’s a great holiday combination of flavors. Try some pistachios or pecans, like I suggested. Maybe stir in some coconut or maybe even some citron. Make it like a fruitcake snack cake.