In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

You drink spirits and give thanks, right?  Makes sense.  So does making this Cranberry-Orange Upside-Down Cake.  Especially because it has spirits and is easy to give and get a "Thanks!" in return.  Hopefully followed by an "OMG this is the best thing I have ever tasted," but you might have to work on the last part.

Cranberry-Orange Upside-Down Cake*

Sally and I have two bags of cranberries sitting in the fridge because I love them and you can only get them fresh around this time of year.  We immediately started dreaming of all the lovely desserts we could make with cranberries (cookies, cakes, and scones, oh my!).  This recipe over at Smitten Kitchen caught Sally's eye, but when we realized it called for sour cream we nixed it, because who has sour cream in their fridge, just waiting to be pulled out and used in a cake?  Yogurt, we could do, milk, definitely, and even buttermilk with the help from a little bit of vinegar... but not sour cream.  Instead we decided to go with a mash-up of recipes: one for the cranberry topping, and one for the actual cake.  The result is the following cake... with the orange thown in just because we happened to have one.  And because it adds another hyphen to the name of the recipe.

Cranberry-Orange Upside-Down Cake
adapted from Smitten Kitchen here and here
Ingredients:
Topping
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 tablespoon honey (molasses would be a good substitute)
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cardamon
1/4 teaspoon grated ginger
2 cups (8 ounces) fresh cranberries
Cake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon dark rum
zest from one orange
1/2 cup unsweetened orange juice
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan with butter or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the brown sugar, butter, honey and water and bring to a boil. Stir well and pour into prepared cake pan. Set pan aside.
3. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Beat butter in a bowl until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in granulated sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla and rum. Mix in orange zest.
5. Add half of flour mixture and mix until just until blended. Beat in juice, then add remaining flour mixture, beating just until blended. (Batter may appear slightly curdled.)
6. Add the cranberries to the prepared baking pan and gently press the fruit into an even layer. Dollop the batter on top (try to go from the outside-in, otherwise the cranberries will spread out from the middle) and carefully spread without disturbing the cranberries underneath.
7. Bake on the center rack until golden and a tester inserted into just the cake comes out clean, 40-45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in pan for 30 minutes. Run a thin knife around the inside of the pan then invert over a plate that is larger than your cake pan.

*sorry the picture is so blurry! It was taken with my phone.