Cranberry Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cakes

A few days ago, I had the chance to visit Hopcott Farms in Pitt Meadows, BC and tour one of their beautiful cranberry bogs. After the tour, I couldn’t resist picking up a bag of freshly-harvested cranberries from their Farm Store to take home. I was inspired to create something new with them, and what came out of my kitchen might just be my new favorite bake: Cranberry Walnut Dark Chocolate Cakes!

These cakes are everything you could want in a dessert; moist, rich, and perfectly-balanced with bursts of tart cranberry, crunchy walnut pieces, and pockets of melty dark chocolate. To top it all off, they’re finished with a velvety cocoa cream cheese frosting that ties every flavor together. These little cakes are a total crowd-pleaser; indulgent yet sophisticated, and guaranteed to impress anyone lucky enough to get a bite!

Here’s the recipe:

Cranberry Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cakes

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ Cups all purpose flour (I use @stillwatersfarmfraservalley fresh-milled Hard Red flour)

• 2 ½ tsp baking powder

• ¼ tsp baking soda

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1 Cup granulated sugar

• 2 large eggs (at room temperature)

• ½ Cup coconut oil (melted)

• 1 Cup milk (at room temperature)

• ⅔ Cup greek yogurt (at room temperature)

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 ¼ Cups cranberries (fresh or frozen) – coarsely chopped (I purchased fresh cranberries from Hopcott Farms)

• ¾ Cup semi-sweet dark chocolate chips (or chunks)

• ⅓ Cup chopped walnuts

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease an XL muffins tin (or Lodge Cast Iron Mini Hearts Cake Pan) with coconut oil OR spray the cavities of the muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large sized bowl combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix well. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Set the bowl aside.

3. In a medium sized bowl whisk together the sugar, eggs and oil. Add in the milk, yogurt and vanilla extract. Whisk until well-combined and pale yellow in color.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the well in the flour mixture. Fold together, using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to gently mix everything together. Be careful to mix until flour is just combined (note that the batter should still be lumpy)

5. Gently fold in the cranberries, walnuts, and chocolate chips (or chunks)

6. Pour the muffin batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling each tin all the way to the top

7. Bake for 5 minutes at 425 degrees F. Keeping the oven door closed, reduce the oven temperature to 350 F. Bake for an additional 24-26 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

8. Remove from oven and place muffin (or cake) pan on a wire rack. Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and transfer onto the wire rack to cool completely.

Cocoa Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups icing sugar

• 4 oz cream cheese, room temperature

• ¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (like Fry’s)

Method:

1. Add all ingredients to mixer and mix until well-combined and no lumps are present. Ice cakes as desired and serve!