Repost: What’s cookin’? Cranberry-orange bread

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I’m reposting an old DM family recipe which, as it happens, I just prepped today. [No more than half a loaf was damaged hot out of the oven.]

This originally went up Dec 1, 2010.

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Another quick and easy recipe for those of us who don’t have a whole lot of time in the kitchen anymore. If you put it in mini-loaf pans you can even use it as a holiday gift for your neighbors, kids’ teachers, lab staff or local Tenured Deadwood F***s.

Combine:

1 1/2 C white or brown sugar
1/2 C melted butter
1 3/4 C orange juice
2 eggs, beaten

Sift (although in fact I never sift):
5 C flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tblsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Stir dry and liquid mixtures together until blended.

Fold in:
3-4 C chopped cranberries (this amounts to ~one of the usual packages, picked over. I just slice them in half, I don’t really chop ’em)
2 Tbsp orange zest (grated rind in case this doesn’t translate to non-USiAns)

Pour into 2 buttered loaf pans* and let stand for 20 minutes (hmm, think I forgot that part last time)

Bake in 350 deg F oven until browned and a knife in the center comes out clean, ~60 minutes

*or mini loaves for neighbors/teachers/TDFs, or probably would work as muffins but I haven’t ever tried that, oddly enough.

Cooking conversion calculator for non-US readers. Which seems to suck. Maybe this Conversion Table for Cooking is better.

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p.s.: Last time I posted this, Doc Becca supplied a cocktail recommendation.

Agreed, this is cake. However, it’s clearly breakfast cake, and so I’m making my cocktail recommendation accordingly. I don’t usually mix with cranberry juice because it’s in general too tart for my taste. That said, what I think could be totally delicious here is the following:

Into a champagne flute, add:

3/4 oz St Germain (Elderberry liqueur, very tasty)
1/2 oz cranberry juice

Fill with champagne (or prosecco or whatever sparkly you’ve got laying around), and garnish with a dainty lemon twist that you run around the rim of the glass and then drop in.

A little girly, maybe, but I think you can handle it.