reid@decwrl (Brian Reid) (11/21/86)
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.RH MOD.RECIPES-SOURCE CRANB-BREAD-1 D "19 Nov 86" 1986
.RZ "GRANDMA MACKAY'S CRANBERRY BREAD" "A festive cranberry orange nut-bread"
My grandmother MacKay clipped this recipe from the 1951 edition 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.
.PP
When I was a
boy, before the invention of the food processor, 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.
.IH "2 small loaves"
.IG "2 cups" "all-purpose flour" "200 g"
.IG "1 cup" "granulated sugar" "200 g"
.IG "1\(12 tsp" "baking powder" "7.5 ml"
.IG "\(12 tsp" "baking soda" "2.5 ml"
.IG "1 tsp" "salt" "5 ml"
.IG "\(34 cup" "orange juice" "180 ml"
(juice of one large orange)
.IG "1 Tbsp" "grated orange peel" "15 ml"
(grated peel of one large orange)
.IG "2 Tbsp" "shortening" "30 g"
.IG "1" "egg,"
beaten
.IG "1 cup" "cranberries," "110 g"
halved or chopped
.IG "1 cup" "walnuts or pecans," "115 g"
chopped.
.PH
.SK 1
Preheat oven to
.TE 350 175 .
.SK 2
Grease the bottom, but not the sides, of two small loaf pans.
.SK 3
In a large bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking
powder, baking soda, and salt). Blend very well.
.SK 4
Mix together the orange juice, orange peel, melted shortening, and beaten
egg. Mix only enough to blend uniformly.
.SK 5
Mix in the cranberries and the nuts; stir gently.
.SK 6
Pour the mixture into the loaf pans. Push it to the corners, leaving the
center slightly hollow.
.SK 7
Bake about an hour at
.TE 350 175 .
The loaves are done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
.SK 8
Cool completely before cutting. Do not try to serve warm.
.NX
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.
.PP
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.
.PP
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.
.PP
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.
.SH RATING
.I Difficulty:
moderate.
.I Time:
10 minutes preparation if you have a food processor, 2 hours
baking and cooling.
.I Precision:
Measure carefully.
.WR
Brian Reid
DEC Western Research Laboratory, Palo Alto, California, USA
reid@decwrl.DEC.COM -or- {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax,sun,pyramid}!decwrl!reid