Friday, December 10, 2010

Orange Cranberry Bread


A wonderful gift to give and receive.

This bread is especially good toasted and buttered.

The flavors are even more pronounced and delicious if you can wrap the loaf and put it away for a day or two before serving.

But it's understandable if you can't wait that long.

Orange Cranberry Bread
makes 1 loaf

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup orange juice
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup shelled walnuts, coarsely chopped*
1 1/4 cup fresh cranberries
2 teaspoons grated orange rind

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a loaf pan.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl.

Make a "well" in the middle of the sifted mixture and pour in orange juice, eggs, and melted butter.  Mix well without overmixing.  Fold in walnuts, cranberries and orange rind.

Pour batter into the prepared pan and set on the middle rack of the oven.  Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove bread from oven and cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Then, remove bread from pan and allow to cool completely on wire rack. 

*Substitute walnuts for pecans, almonds, or pistaschios.  (The green pistachios make a beautiful Christmas presentation when mixed in with the cranberries.)

3 comments:

Heather-Gathering Spriggs said...

i was just about to ask you if you had a good bread recipe. i need to get crackin in the kitchen again. i have been focusing on other things the last couple of weeks and miss it.
i was thinking of you yesterday too as i made homemade chicken soup with my own chicken stock. i don't know if i did right but we shall see!

Franky said...

anything with orange tastes soooo good!!

Caneel said...

Yumm! I make a cranberry bread that has orange in it for Thanksgiving (no nuts -- tempting to add them next time after reading this recipe). I am KICKING myself for not taking a picture of it because it'd be a great post for this time of year and I'm probably not going to be making more before Christmas. There's next year, though!