Cranberry Almond Coffee Cake

Excerpted from The Baker's Catalogue, ©2006 The King Arthur Flour Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

INGREDIENTS
For the coffeecake:
1 stick margarine or butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk or yogurt (nonfat is fine)
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cranberry sauce (whole berry is preferable)
1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds, toasted

For the glaze:
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

PREPARATION
1. In a large bowl, cream together margarine or butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, buttermilk or yogurt, and almond extract. In a separate bowl, mix together baking powder, baking soda, flour and salt. Add all at once to the wet ingredients, stirring just to blend.

2. Grease and flour a tube pan. Spoon half of batter into pan. Spread half of cranberry sauce evenly atop batter, then spread remaining batter over that. Top with remaining cranberry sauce, and sprinkle toasted almonds evenly over sauce.

3. Bake coffeecake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for 55 minutes, or until cake tests done. Remove from oven, and cool in pan for 5 minutes. While cake is cooling, make glaze by mixing confectioners' sugar, milk and almond extract. Turn cake out of pan, and dribble glaze over warm cake. Let cake cool completely before serving (or serve it warm, if you don't mind it crumbling a bit!)

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