Cranberry Nut Bread

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Packed with nuts, cranberries, and citrus flavors, this quick bread recipe is a great breakfast or dense snack. A perfect way to use up leftover nuts or cranberries, especially when they are in season, this recipe is all about fruity tastes and is bursting with cranberry flavor.

Why not learn how to toast your cranberry nut bread in the oven with this How To Make Toast In The Oven Guide? Or make another tasty, quick bread, like this recipe for Cheesy Onion Bread instead?

Cranberry Nut Bread

Cranberries are a wonderful, if not often used, little berry, and they are so much more than just a useful sauce to serve at Thanksgiving.

By combining them with a little bit of citrus juice and zest, as well as a few crunchy nuts, you can make a robust, flavorful, and surprisingly moist quick bread that is packed with cranberry flavor!            

Cranberry Nut Bread Ingredients

Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts so that you know exactly what to buy for this recipe.

• All-purpose flour

• White sugar

• Salt

• Baking powder

• Baking soda

• Egg

• Vegetable oil

• Orange zest

• Orange juice

• Cranberries

• Chopped walnuts

How To Make Cranberry Nut Bread

• In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda

• Add the cranberries and walnuts, and stir to coat well with flour

• In another medium bowl, mix together the egg, oil, orange zest, and orange juice

• Slowly pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture, and stir until just blended

• Make sure not to over mix the batter

• Spoon the batter into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan and bake at 350 Fahrenheit for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean

• Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely

Can You Use Other Nuts In Place Of Walnuts?

This recipe calls for walnuts, perhaps the most textural and crunchy nut there is, almost entirely because of their crunchiness.

While the flavor of walnuts themselves pairs reasonably well with cranberries, they don’t really have that much of a significant flavor profile on their own.

Instead, walnuts provide an incredible amount of snap and crunch while still somehow being that little bit chewy. All this combines into a really pleasant textural experience as you bite through the bread.

However, not everyone particularly likes walnuts, and some people are even allergic to only walnuts specifically.

Instead of walnuts, you can easily substitute in some other kind of nut with a similar textural profile.

Something like hazelnuts would work particularly well, as they have a similar sort of crunch, though they lose a lot of it when cooked.

Peanuts could work as well, though they have such a strong flavor that they will inadvertently turn this into peanut bread without you realizing.

You could also totally skip the nuts and just make it a fruity quick bread instead! Just don’t be let down when you bite into the bread and realize that it doesn’t really have any kind of crunch.

How To Turn Your Cranberry Nut Bread Into Muffins

Fruit and nut bread is best enjoyed at home; simply cut a fresh slice, maybe apply a thin layer of jam, and pair your bread with a warming mug of tea.

However, it is also nice to have a homemade treat, like this cranberry nut bread, while out and about. If you wanted to, you could cut slices in the morning and carefully carry them around in a container. However, you are more likely to end up with a pot of crumbs than you are a delicious slice of fruity bread.

A much better solution is to make your cranberry nut bread into muffins, as they keep their structural integrity much better than a single slice of fruit and nut bread.

Turning this fruit and nut bread into muffins is super simple. Use the same ingredients and follow the same steps; however, rather than placing the entire mixture into a single loaf tin, divide it between muffin liners.

The exact number of muffins will depend on the size of the muffin liners that you choose to use. For smaller muffin liners, you should get between 12 and 16 muffins. Larger muffin cases will probably provide between 8 and 12 muffins.

Due to their smaller size and larger surface area, your muffins will cook much quicker than a loaf would – start checking your muffins at around 35 minutes of cooking time, inserting a toothpick or a knife into the center of a muffin and seeing if it is done yet. If the toothpick comes out clean, then you are done!

Once done, allow to cool completely out of the muffin tray, and then store in airtight containers ready for you to take with you wherever you go!

Looking for more delicious Quick Loaf Bread recipes? Try these out:

• Spiced Applesauce Bread        

• Date Nut Bread

• Carrot Bread

Happy Cooking

Love,

Karlynn

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