Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry Shortbread Cake

Sweet, tender, buttery cookie filled with tart ruby fruit, this is a visual as well as a taste sensation.

The vanilla cookie dough contains the basic ingredients of flour, butter, sugar and egg, with an additional egg yolk for tenderness. After mixing the dough, it's divided in half, shaped into discs and chilled briefly. Each piece is then rolled to fit a 9" springform pan. The bottom crust is layered with the filling (cranberries simmered with sugar, orange juice and rind) followed by the top crust. After a sprinkling of sugar, it's ready to be baked.

I've made this a few times as written but did take a shortcut with this latest version. I skipped the chilling step and merely pressed slightly over half the dough into the bottom and up the sides of the pan and crumbled the remaining dough on the top of the fruit filling.

The cake is a little more rustic looking as a result but still tasted as delicious as it usually does.