Champagne Grape Upside-Downer

Friends, this week I had a stroke of TWD genius.  The chosen recipe was Dorie's Cranberry Upside-Downer, picked by Sabrina of Superfluous.  I had a couple of cranberries in the freezer, but I wasn't really feeling ready to break them out.  Then I found some champagne grapes (at WalMart, of all places!) and it was love at first sight.  Do you know about these little gems?  They're teeny-tiny, super sweet grapes, also called Black Corinth grapes.  Adorable.  They make me want to throw a wine-and-cheese soiree and drape them all over my house (and serve this cake, of course).

I've never baked with grapes before, but I've always been interested in doing so.  I've often thought about trying to make a grape pie, which I didn't think existed until I googled it.  I thought this cake came out just beautifully for my first crack at the grape thing.  The grapes look like juicy little jewels atop that cake, don't they?  It turned out as more of a spoon cake because of the extra moisture from the fruit and the loads of butter involved.  It's definitely not very WW friendly (I think 6 points for 1/12 of the cake.. yikes!), but it's worth a little splurge. You people must wonder how I lose any weight with all of these decadent posts.

So, my changes to Dorie's recipe were as follows:

-substitute 2 cups champagne grapes for 2 cups cranberries

-omit cinnamon

-use walnuts

-glaze with grape jelly or jam

I opted to keep the walnuts in because I thought it would be reminiscent of Waldorf salad and the like.  It worked well- the crunch was welcome with such a soft and spongy cake.  I'm serious about the wine-and-cheese party.. I'm going to have make this again when there are people around to eat it.

Thanks, Sabrina, for the great recipe pick that sparked this idea!

*Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) is a group of bloggers baking through Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

**Find the recipe here.