Cranberry-Orange Bread

Phew! The crazy season of Christmas and New Year is winding down and if you’re like me, you’re finding loads of leftovers lurking in the dark corners of your refrigerator. Quick, no waste, let’s use them up before they go one step beyond! Today I found some only slightly wrinkled fresh cranberries on the middle shelf, tucked way back behind the dregs of some mushroom soup and some turkey risotto and I decided I would get out and dust off my trusty copy of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book and use the recipe my Mom used to use to make Cranberry Orange Bread.

It was one of those Proustian moments with food recalling happy times growing up in

Scituate, Massachusetts, where one of my favourite winter pastimes was ice skating on the frozen cranberry bogs. Scituate is about 50 miles/80 kms from Plymouth, the home of Ocean Spray Cranberries. The lovely red globules of goodness have been a part of my life for decades now, and I especially remember my Mom making this absolutely delicious recipe every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas. My Dad doesn’t like walnuts in it so Mom used to leave them out. Since we have two very fruitful walnut trees here in France and a rather abundant crop of nuts drying in the barn, my Cranberry Orange Bread will be graced with brown bits as well as red splotches 😉

Cranberry-Orange Bread
Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (Ninth edition, Tenth Printing, 1988), adapted for Thermomix TM31 and TM5 by Madame Thermomix. Makes one large or three small loaves; you can also make 8 mini loaves for gifting. Delicious with loads of butter and a glorious cup of tea, or with a mug of steaming hot chocolate when you come back from ice skating! Feel free to leave out the walnuts. And if you bought too many packs of cranberries and had to freeze some, you can use them in this recipe, straight from the freezer.

Ingredients
For the drizzle glaze:
125 g icing sugar/powdered sugar (make your own!)

For the cake:
60 g walnuts (halves or pieces or already chopped; optional)
150 g fresh or frozen cranberries
3 medium juicing oranges
30 g sunflower or other unflavoured oil
1 egg
250 g plain flour/all-purpose flour
170 g sugar (any kind)
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda/bicarbonate
1 ½ tsp. baking powder

You will also need:
1 medium and 2 small bowls for reserved ingredients
a jug for orange juice

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180° C/350° F. Grease and flour a loaf tin or line it with baking paper. See above for recommended sizes.
2. Prepare the drizzle glaze: If required, make your icing sugar: 30 seconds/Speed 10. Tip out and reserve. (Tip: Use a pastry brush to get it all out.)
3. Make the cake: If required (and if using), chop walnuts 5 seconds/Speed 5. Tip out and reserve in something the size of a cereal bowl. Chop cranberries 2 seconds/Speed 5; tip out and reserve in the same bowl as the walnuts.
4. Thinly peel off the skin of 1 orange. Chop 8 seconds/Speed 8. Scrape sides of bowl with spatula. Remove and reserve about half the chopped peel and leave the rest in the TM bowl.
5. Squeeze the juice from all 3 oranges into a jug. Weigh 220 g orange juice into the TM bowl (on top of the chopped peel that’s still there) and add the oil and the egg. Mix 5 seconds/Speed 5. Scrape down.
6. Add flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Mix 5 seconds/Speed 3. Scrape down sides and around the bottom of the bowl and mix again 5 seconds/Speed 3.
7. Add chopped walnuts and cranberries and mix 10 seconds/Speed 3/Reverse Blade Function. Scrape down and mix with spatula to get an evenly distributed batter.
8. Turn batter into your greased or lined tin or tins. Bake 50 – 60 minutes for one large loaf, 30 to 40 minutes for smaller loaves, and 20 to 30 minutes for mini loaves; cake will be done when a wooden pick or a knife inserted near the centre comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the tin and then cool thoroughly on a wire rack.
9. Make the drizzle glaze: Add 125 g icing sugar/powdered sugar and reserved orange juice to TM bowl. Mix 5 seconds/Speed 3. Scrape down and mix again 5 seconds/Speed 5. Drizzle the glaze onto your cooled loaf or loaves and garnish with the reserved shredded orange peel.

How do you like your Cranberry Orange Bread? With tea, coffee or hot chocolate? And when was the last time you went ice skating on a cranberry bog?

Bon appétit !

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