Cranberry-Nut Bread
One of Betty Crocker's Best

This quick bread boasts cranberries and coarsely chopped nuts. What a flavor combination! Recipe can easily be doubled.

Cranberry cookery in America predates European settlement. Most of the cranberry recipes we enjoy today, descend from European culinary traditions. People cook what they know. Cranberry bread is a 20th century twist on the enriched fruited bread theme. None of our 19th century American cookbooks contain recipes for cranberry breads (quick or yeast). Pre-20th century cranberry recipes concentrate on sauce (mostly boiled), conserves, jellies, puddings, and pie fillings. A survey of historic American cook books and newspapers confirms the existance of cranberrry baked goods (muffins, breads, etc.) from 1903 forward.

An undated [probably 1910s-1920s] Ocean Spray advertising booklet promoting canned cranberry sauce shows a picture of cranberry muffins. Annotation reads "Cut our sauce into small cubes and mix in your favorite batter. Delicious in Bran or dark muffins." A recipe from 1950 also suggests folding in cubes of cranberry sauce.

FMM: This is a great quick bread recipe for the Holidays, and the bread turns out perfect. I would not change a thing. It also makes great rhubarb bread, too. For the rhubarb bread I left the orange/lemon peel out because I didn't want to mask the rhubarb flavors. I used almost 2 cups of rhubarb. I saw a very similar recipe, ingredient-wise, using strawberries instead of the cranberries, so I made this replacing the cranberries with strawberries, and while the flavor was good, the bread was very moist. Dried strawberries would probably work better, or you could try baking them in the oven (at a low temperature) for a while to dry them out and concentrate the flavor. Fresh blueberries may work, but Brian really likes the Blueberry Bread I make with sour cream.

I made Rhubarb muffins from this recipe. I did not add the nuts or citrus peel. The recipe made 12 muffins. Per the recommendation of How to Convert Muffins to Bread (and Bread to Muffins, I baked them at 375 degrees F. and took them out after 18 minutes. They got very brown, which is fine, but the center top rose somewhat higher than the edges and was noticeably ligher in color. The taste was good, plenty sweet, maybe a bit too sweet, but I think a different recipe may work better. The recipes on the Rhubarb Muffins page were specifically written for rhubarb muffins. I would actually like one that is more muffin-like. The ones I made from this recipe could almost be rhubarb cupcakes. I would like to try the Old Fashioned Rhubarb Muffins recipe.

2 eggs
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen (thawed) cranberries (6 oz.) - or substitute cut-up rhubarb
3/4 cups sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoons grated orange or lemon peel
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup coarsely chopped nuts [I usually leave the nuts out. I don't think the bread needs them.]
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease one 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 inch loaf pan. [Or if making muffins, grease 12 cup muffin tin.]

[If using frozen cranberries, rinse under cool water and let them defrost a bit before using. Otherwise they make the batter too cold and the bread does not raise well.]

[Sift the flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder together and set aside.]

Whisk eggs in large bowl, then stir in cranberries, sugar, oil, milk, vanilla, and orange peel. [I mix all but the cranberries first. It is easier to get everything mixed together this way, then add the cranberries.] Stir in remaining ingredients. [Folding the flour into the cranberry mixture works well to get the liquids at the bottom mixed in with the flour.] Pour into pan. If desired sprinkle about 1 tablespoon sugar on top.

Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaf from pan; remove from pan and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.

Makes: 1 loaf