Cranberry Orange Quick Bread with an orange glaze and orange peel. Tasty, delicious, and easy to make. Perfect for gifting during the holidays.
If you are going to be doing any holiday baking this year, you will want to include this tasty, festive bread. Just trust me on this one.
I love baking for gifts, as it is a real labor of love, but I also want to make sure that the people who receive my baked gifts actually like them. While I love all the cookies, treats, and sweets of the holidays, one of my favorite things to bake, and gift this time of year, are quick breads.
I love this super simple banana bread recipe and find it is always a good one to try, and the most popular recipe on my site. But I thought it would be fun to do something a little more festive and seasonal this year.
Not too long ago I made the most delicious cranberry orange shortbread cookies . Since I pretty much ate them all by myself, I knew the same flavor combination would be a real hit, even if it is just with me! I juiced some oranges, grabbed the leftover cranberries I had from Thanksgiving, and went to work.
I am really happy with how this bread turned out. In my head it would be great, and while it was baking it smelled great. But you just never know until you try it.
And look at that glaze! I personally loved the addition of the bits of orange peel. You could candy them to make them even sweeter. However, there is plenty of sugar in the bread itself, so I found that to be unnecessary. When my kids first saw it, they thought I put cheese on top.
Hahahaha.
Nope, not cheese, bits of orange peels. Deliciously flavorful bits.
And look at those gorgeous colors. Did you know cranberries are high in anti-oxidants. Let’s pretend this bread is healthy. Even if we do take those healthy cranberries, and roll them in sugar! Focus on the good things people.
Because I love gifting baked goods, I decided to make this cranberry orange quick bread in a mini loaf pan. But if you want to make this bread as a single large loaf just add about 10 minutes to the baking time. Of course check it because everyone’s ovens perform a little differently.
This glaze is super easy to make, basically you just whisk together orange juice and powdered sugar. Adjust the amounts to get the thickness you want. I wanted a runnier version this time around to help show off the gorgeous texture of the bread. But you could certainly make it thicker.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Cranberry Orange Quick Bread
Ingredients
- 12 ounce bag cranberries chopped, fresh is best, frozen works too
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar for tossing the cranberries in
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups sugar Yes, I have sugar listed already, this goes in the bread, that sugar coats the cranberries, I like having it listed separately
- Zest of one orange
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups orange juice fresh is best (just use the orange you zested)
- 4 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
Glaze
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
Garnish
- Orange peel grated, no pitch (the white stuff)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
- Wash fresh cranberries, and put them in a food processor with 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and pulse for 10-15 seconds, then set aside. You can also just chop them by hand and mix them with the sugar.
- In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In a separate bowl mix together together oil, 2 cups sugar, and orange zest, mix well
- Combine your flour mixture with your sugar mixture, then slowly add the egg and orange juice
- Mix until just combined.
- Fold in cranberries.
- Pour into 4 greased mini loaf pans, and bake 35-45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let cool 10 mins in the pan, remove and let finish cooling
- Whisk together the glaze, adjust powdered sugar to liquid ratio to get your desired consistency.
- Pour over the top of cooled bread, add orange peel and enjoy!
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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And check out these other great tasting quick bread options:
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