reid@decwrl (Brian Reid) (11/21/86)
CRANB-BREAD-1(D) USENET Cookbook CRANB-BREAD-1(D)
GRANDMA MACKAY'S CRANBERRY BREAD
CRANB-BREAD-1 - A festive cranberry orange nut-bread
My grandmother MacKay clipped this recipe from the 1951 edi-
tion of the Pillsbury Bake-Off competition recipes, and
we've made it a family tradition ever since. From time to
time my mother and I have both tried to improve on the
recipe, but it appears that the recipe is already perfect;
every variation we have ever tried has been disappointing by
comparison.
When I was a boy, before the invention of the food proces-
sor, making this bread required cutting the cranberries in
half by hand, with a knife, and the person who brought 4
loaves of cranberry bread to the family Thanksgiving meal
was more welcome than the person who brought the turkey.
Now, between Baker's Secret loaf pans and Cuisinart slicer
blades, you can knock out 8 perfect loaves of the stuff
while watching one episode of Sesame Street. My grandmother
still cuts each cranberry in half with a paring knife, and
hers still tastes better than mine.
INGREDIENTS (2 small loaves)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup orange juice (juice of one large orange)
1 Tbsp grated orange peel (grated peel of one large
orange)
2 Tbsp shortening
1 egg, beaten
1 cup cranberries, halved or chopped
1 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped.
PROCEDURE
(1) Preheat oven to 350 deg. F.
(2) Grease the bottom, but not the sides, of two small
loaf pans.
(3) In a large bowl, sift together all the dry
ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking
soda, and salt). Blend very well.
(4) Mix together the orange juice, orange peel, melted
shortening, and beaten egg. Mix only enough to
blend uniformly.
(5) Mix in the cranberries and the nuts; stir gently.
(6) Pour the mixture into the loaf pans. Push it to
the corners, leaving the center slightly hollow.
(7) Bake about an hour at 350 deg. F. The loaves are
done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes
out clean.
(8) Cool completely before cutting. Do not try to
serve warm.
NOTES
It takes practice to know when to stop mixing the dough. If
you mix too much, the bread gets a chewy texture to it,
whereas it should have a very crumbly consistency, like a
muffin or cornbread.
It really makes a difference in the texture of this bread to
use a shortening that is solid at room temperature, like
Crisco. It really makes a difference in the flavor to use
fresh orange-peel and not powdered. I prefer walnuts to
pecans.
It might seem sensible to try to use the same orange for the
peel and the juice, but it is really more trouble than it is
worth to try to peel a juiced orange or juice a peeled
orange. I usually use two oranges, and eat the one that I
took the peel from.
This bread keeps well in the freezer. Specifically, it keeps
from Thanksgiving to Christmas. It also survives quite well
being mailed by parcel post from Indiana to Maryland.
RATING
Difficulty: moderate. Time: 10 minutes preparation if you
have a food processor, 2 hours baking and cooling. Preci-
sion: Measure carefully.
CONTRIBUTOR
Brian Reid
DEC Western Research Laboratory, Palo Alto, California, USA
reid@decwrl.DEC.COM -or- {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax,sun,pyramid}!decwrl!reid