Here’s the original recipe: 
‘Tis the season for cranberries, so when I saw a recipe in a hundred-year-old cookbook for Cranberry Pudding I decided to give it a try. The Cranberry Pudding was delightful. The old-fashioned cake-style pudding was embedded with tart cranberries, and smothered in a lovely vanilla sauce. This recipe is a keeper.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
The recipe says to serve with either hard or sweet sauce. Hard sauce of more of a spread than a sauce. I prefer an actual sauce, so decided to go with the sweet sauce. The cookbook that contained the Cranberry Pudding recipe did not have any recipes for Sweet Sauce. However, it did have a recipe for Vanilla Sauce, so I decided to go with that.
I didn’t boil the water that I stirred into the mixture because it didn’t seem necessary, since the mixture is heated to make the sauce.
Cranberry Pudding with Vanilla Sauce
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup raw cranberries
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
Preheat oven to 350° F. Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, milk and lemon extract in a mixing bowl. Beat until smooth. Stir in the cranberries. Put in a greased and floured 8″ X 8″ baking pan. Bake 35 – 45 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Serve warm with Vanilla Sauce.
Vanilla Sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup water
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon butter
Mix the sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan; add the water gradually while stirring constantly. Bring to a boil using medium heat while continuing to stir, then reduce heat and continue to stir and simmer for 10 minutes (or less if desired thickness is reached sooner). Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla. Serve warm.
It looks yummy especially with the vanilla cream.
It’s tasty.
I like the look of this wintry pudding. Thanks.
It is a very pretty pudding. The red cranberries look very nice against the lighter background of the cake-like pudding.
Wonderful to read these two recipes, Sheryl. “Medium oven” and “hard or sweet sauce.”
Recipe authors back then tended to be much more vague about recipe ingredients, processes, and serving suggestions.
I am sure I would like this–I love the old-fashioned pudding cakes.
I think that you’d enjoy Cranberry Pudding. It’s yummy.
That looks delicious!!
It’s very tasty.
This sounds fabulous but then I am a bit biased as I have the Larkin cookbook and it was my grandmother’s. I like to think of her making things like this, I know she loved cranberries. Watery eyes making it hard to type for some reason. Even if she never tried this recipe I will have to make it now. 🥲
It’s wonderful that you have your grandmother’s actual cookbook. Can you tell which recipes were her favorite based on which pages had food stains or notes?
Oooh, that looks delicious. I will give it a try.
I think that you’d like this recipe. It has a lot going for it. It is both easy to make and yummy.
I have a similar recipe but it is steamed. Yummy!
mmm… it sounds lovely. I really like steamed puddings – though don’t make them very often.