cranberry pecan bread

Several years ago I bought a loaf of cranberry/pecan yeast bread from our local artisan bakery. I was very disappointed that some of the nuts were rancid. I should have told them. Especially as it was $9 (yes, "nine dollars") a loaf......

I decided then that I had to be able to do better than that, and I found a recipe in The Silver Palate Cookbook. I've been enjoying this quick bread at this time of year ever since (you can't get fresh cranberries at other times!). This is a bit later than I usually make it, but we had so many good things to eat when my baker-daughter was here...... And I'm the only one who likes this bread, as it has nuts in it......

I think I'm too much of a "product person" to really enjoy cooking. I wish I enjoyed the process of doing some of this stuff, but really, it just makes me tired to spend 40 minutes picking over cranberries, toasting pecans, and getting the zest off a couple of oranges, before I can even begin making the oj, melting the butter, beating the eggs.............

I'm working on it; trying to appreciate how beautiful the cranberries are, and how good the orange smells, but mostly I just want all the fuss to be done so I can EAT.

Ok, enough whining, let's make the bread. This stuff *is* pretty, isn't it. I saw Nigella on tv the other day, and she was saying that it made her feel good to eat things that were beautiful. Me, too.






















I put in more cranberries and more nuts than the original calls for.

I did learn, one year, that you really can have too much of a good thing, especially if you expect to toast this bread -- if you have too many cranberries/nuts, it doesn't hold together.

The original recipe calls for grating the zest. I must not have the right kind of grater, because I always spend so much time getting zest off the grater that the whole process is even more annoying........ I have one of those little zesters with a row of little circular peeling holes, in a black plastic handle. I suppose I could go take a pic of it. Anyway, I use my trusty zester, in little short strokes, as I want little bitty pieces of zest, not long curls.

So -- pick over the cranberries, throwing out any that are not nice and firm. Wash them.

Toast the pecans (I put them in a rectangular cake pan in a 300 oven for about 9 minutes). Taste them very frequently at the end; I'm told they burn quickly and decisively.

Melt the butter, beat the eggs, mix up a frozen oj if you don't have any all ready to go in the fridge.

Whew!

Now mix it all up and put it in the oven.

The directions say that it is done when you stab it with a knife (in the middle) and the knife comes out clean. Alton agrees; my nifty new digital thermometer came out clean (just as a knife would have) when the bread's internal temp was over 200F (and came out gooey when it was 185).

I put my three loaves on one oven shelf, and the two on the sides were done before the one in the middle, by about 5 minutes.

I love my little thermometer!!!!


This bread is lovely, hot out of the oven, with no embellishment. I will eat one loaf over the next few days. I slice and then freeze the other two loaves. I pry the slices off the frozen loaves, a couple here and a couple there, and toast them frozen. Those I do embellish with a little butter. Yum!

Cranberry Pecan Bread, 
      adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook.

   6 cups flour
   1.5 cups granulated sugar
   3 tablespoons baking powder
   1 teaspoon salt

Sift flour and other dry ingredients in a large bowl. 
Make a well in the center.

   2 cups orange juice
   6 eggs, beaten 
   6 tablespoons butter, melted

Mix oj, eggs, butter into the dry stuff.  Do not over-mix.

Fold in

   3 cups shelled and toasted walnuts or pecans
   4 cups fresh cranberries, picked over and washed
   2 tablespoons tiny bits of orange rind (grated or zested)

Put into three greased "regular size" loaf pans.

Bake at 350F until a knife stuck in the center comes out
clean -- about 50 minutes.