A Cranberry Fixation

It seems that I have been baking a lot from blogs lately. But who can blame me; I suffer from an overload of recipes from so many food blogs that continually tease and entice me with their recipes. And my eyes are never satiated; my bookmarks are full of recipes that I have spied, salivated over and envied and the list keeps growing. So what I decided was that it was high time I start tackling some of those recipes rather than just letting them go to waste. If my online bookmarks could gather dust, I assure you there would be a thick mantle of dirt that no feather duster could remove.

So before virtual cobwebs start to form on these recipes, here is one of the oldest ones that has been sitting there for almost as long as this blog has been alive- Elise’s Cranberry Nut Bread Recipe. Now it not only seems that I have been baking from blogs lately, but it also appears that I have been baking with cranberries a lot too. I just can’t get enough of them, which I surmise is a probably a good thing for the waist, as now, instead of peering into the pantry and reaching for a packet of something no-so-healthy, I find myself reaching for that packet of dried cranberries. I’m sure my body will thank me for it at some point.

A reader did ask me not long after the past two cranberry posts whether there was a cranberry craze going on down here in Oz. Well the answer is, no there is no such craze, although it looks as if the craze is going in my kitchen.

To be honest cranberries aren’t at all a craze down under, and to think of it, cranberries seem more of a North-American thing (kind of like egg-nog) as it’s used in a lot of their holiday cooking, like Thanksgiving. I have actually never ever seen fresh cranberries in the shops or the markets, and if Australia does grow Cranberries, well I have never come across them. My entire experience with the cranberry has solely been through the dried and the tea variety, and at times at the deli when I buy a turkey panini that comes with a nice slathering of cranberry sauce in between. Other than that, this berry is quite foreign to me.

So when I saw this recipe for Cranberry Nut Bread, I was quite excited to be able to use the dried cranberries that had been sitting in my pantry for quite some time. If you like fruits and nuts in cake then this is definitely for you- sweet, nutty and tangy all in one slice. I had mine with a cranberry and apple tea, but if that’s too much cranberry for you, then I think a nice Darjeeling or Russian Caravan will make a nice accompaniment.

I baked this bread in a rounded loaf tin but purely for aesthetics; you can just use an ordinary loaf tin if you wish.

Cranberry Nut Bread
recipe from this blog
serves 8



2 cups plain all-purpose flour
¾ cup granulated sugar
1½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup dried cranberries (crasins), chopped

¾ cup orange juice
¼ cup butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp orange zest

Pre-heat oven to 180°C.
Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Add the chopped cranberries and walnuts to coat with the flour mixture.
Mix together orange juice, butter, egg, and orange peel.
Add to flour, cranberry, nut mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until just blended.
Pour into a greased 9x5 or 8x4 loaf pan.
Bake at 180°C for 55 to 60 minutes or until done (when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean).
Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.
Slice and serve with butter and tea.