Christmas time cranberry sauce with a flavour of oranges and gingerbread spices

Christmas preparations are almost finished. One of the last things I did this year was the cranberry sauce, which I will serve with pate and cold meat ( just before the moment I took the pork loin stuffed with cloves, garlic and apricot glaze from the oven – it smells insanely !)
To make the sauce ( or maybe i should say “jam”) it takes just a few minutes, and it tastes sensational – sweet with a hint of bitterness.

Ingredients
1 ½ cups frozen cranberries
orange juice of 1 big orange
1 cup brown sugar (or less if you prefer savoury sauce)
1 big apple
5 g cloves
1 cinnamon stick
orange zest of 1 orange
pinch salt
lemon juice – to add taste
optional a little bit of water if the sauce is too thick

Method
Peel the appl, dice. Together with cranberries, orange juice, sugar and spices put the apples in the sauce pan. Cook over low heat for about 10 min., until most of the fruit will fall apart ( you can help fruit with potato masher). Add some lemon juice to add some sourness. Hot sauce you can put in jars and bottled. Served cold taste the best!

Christmas spice cake with Guinness

This cake I baked for work because of the Saint Nicholas day. * It is really very moist (a bit of it stuck to the pan, so don’t forget to floured the pan), with intense spice aroma, broken with caramel aftertaste of Guinness which not only taste great but also gives deep, chocolate colour .
* That’s why there is just few photos, I haven’t manager to take more in the morning
Recipe (modified) from brown eyed baker website.

Ingredients
¾ cup Guinness
½ teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup molasses
¾ cup brown sugar
1 ½ cups wheat flour
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
2 pinches pepper
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil


Method
Bring the Guinness to a boil, remove from the heat, stir in the baking soda ( it will foam up !!), next stir in sugar and molasses until combined. Set mixture aside.
In a separate bowl whisk the flour with the rest of dry ingredients. Set aside.
Transfer the Guinness mixture to a large bowl. Whisk in eggs and oil until combined. Whisk the flour mixture in thirds into the wet mixture, stirring vigorously until completely smooth after each addition.
Transfer the mixture to the buttered and floured pan. Bake for about 40 min. in preheated oven to 180 oC (360 F).
Cool the cake in the pan, decorate with icing.

Method
Bring the Guinness to a boil, remove from the heat, stir in the baking soda ( it will foam up !!), next stir in sugar and molasses until combined. Set mixture aside.
In a separate bowl whisk the flour with the rest of dry ingredients. Set aside.
Transfer the Guinness mixture to a large bowl. Whisk in eggs and oil until combined. Whisk the flour mixture in thirds into the wet mixture, stirring vigorously until completely smooth after each addition.
Transfer the mixture to the buttered and floured pan. Bake for about 40 min. in preheated oven to 180 oC (360 F).
Cool the cake in the pan, decorate with icing.