Cran-Orange Bread

After the holidays, my grocery store had fresh cranberries on sale for 25 cents a bag, yep you read that right.  So I picked up 2 bags on tossed them in the freezer.  Have oranges in the fridge because well it's orange season so I decided to make a Cranberry Orange loaf.

Cranberry Orange loaf

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon grated orange zest 1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries

1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped 1/4 cup margarine, softened 1 cup white sugar 1 egg 3/4 cup orange juice

Directions:

1.	Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in orange zest, cranberries, and pecans. Set aside.
2.	In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, and egg until smooth. Stir in orange juice. Beat in flour mixture until just moistened. Pour into prepared pan.
3.	Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until the bread springs back when lightly touched. Let stand 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Wrap in plastic when completely cool.

 
I used the zest of a whole orange.  I also increased the cranberries to 2 whole cups.


    


Richard thought they were too tart.  I didn't have an issue with the tartness.  I wished there was more orange flavor to it, but the orange cut the extreme tart of fresh cranberries.  One thing I really liked about this was the texture.  It was super moist and almost had the mouth feel of a pound cake. 


I think next time I'd do a mix of fresh cranberries and crasins maybe.  I think I'd also try to bump up the orange flavor.