Cranberry Orange Bread

Cranberry Orange Bread is one of my favorite things to make and enjoy as a special treat around the holidays. My son, Jack, loves this tart and citrus flavored bread! I leave out the nuts (personal preference) and chop the cranberries into small bits to decrease the tartness of the cranberries. The result is a moist delicious bread that goes heavenly with coffee on a winter morning.Cranberry Orange Bread

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon grated zest from 1 large orange
1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2/3 cup buttermilk
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 large egg, beaten lightly
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups cranberries (6 ounces), chopped coarsely

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease bottom and sides of a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan; dust with flour, tapping out excess.Melt the better in a small bowl and set aside.Zest the orange using a microplane or fine grater and set aside.Squeeze the juice from the same orange.In a small bowl, stir together orange juice, zest, buttermilk, butter, and egg; set aside. In a large bowl or mixer, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in large bowl. 
Stir liquid ingredients into the dry until just moistened. I did this on low speed with my kitchen aid mixer. Be careful not to leave the mixer on and running!Wash and measure 1 1/2 cups of fresh cranberries.  Are they beautiful?
You can chop these beauties by hand but they tend to roll off the cutting board and drive me crazy, so I used my Ninja.

Don't pulverize them if you use a blender!  Just pulse the blender a few times until they are coarsely chopped.

Gently stir in cranberries. Do not overmix.

Scrape batter into prepared loaf pan and smooth surface with a rubber spatula. 
Bake 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees; continue to bake until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean, about 45 minutes longer. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool completely before serving, at least 1 hour.

Your kitchen will smell amazing and it will be hard to wait for this to cool, but please do!  It will crumble and be a mess if you try to cut it when it is hot.

The buttermilk in this recipe makes this bread moist and delicious.

Enjoy!

Comments

Popular Posts