Lemon Cranberry Pound Cake

For the first time after moving to Australia I saw dried cranberries for sale today. Dried cranberries are common in the States but somehow not popular in Australia--maybe it is too warm here for cranberries to grow?

In addition to nibbling, dried cranberries are also good in cakes and bread. One of my all time favorite is lemon cranberry pound cake, which is the dessert I baked first-time-ever back in 2002. Of course back then being a lot less well-equipped I had to cream the sugar and butter together and did a lot of whipping with hands. Now with a bread machine life is much easier.

This is the recipe I used and my cakes came out beautifully. I made several changes to the recipe though:

1) I added l.25 cups of sugar instead of 3 cups and that was sweet enough for me. Cannot imagine how people can handle that much sugar! Initially I used 1.5 cups but then I saved .25 cup for the dressing.

2) I also skipped the brandy from the dressing. We didn't have any at home.

3) I through in bunch of dried cranberries in the dough as well. Love them, the more the merrier :)

4) I only used about 110 grams of butter and replace the rest with canola oil.

My cake is tender and moist--I am bringing a piece every day to work for morning tea--yummy.

Here is a picture, unfortunately the focus was on my cup.

(It is time to work on my photography skills...)