Cranberry-pumpkin bread.

When my mom was in town a few weeks ago, we decided we were going to make our cranberry-pumpkin bread. To our dismay, we couldn't find fresh cranberries in any of the stores. How could this be, I wondered; we were in WISCONSIN, cranberry country, after all! Disappointed in WI's lack of fresh cranberries (especially because, as my mom reported, MN stores had already been carrying the bright red berries for a few weeks), we gave up our search. 

Earlier this week, as I was shopping for ingredients for our stew, I happily came across several bags of cranberries nestled in between stacks of carrots. I immediately texted my mom to let her know of my discovery, and added the bread to our "to-make" list for the following day. 

We found this bread recipe quite a few years ago, on Thanksgiving Eve, as we were getting ready to host our family for dinner. As was our tradition, every Wednesday before Thanksgiving my aunt would come over to our house, we'd eat shrimp, apples, and brie, and prepare for the next day's meal. This particular evening, we were pouring over cookbooks and magazines to find out if there were any new dishes worth trying; this bread was one of them. We decided to tweak the original recipe just slightly, and have been following our version (reprinted below) ever since. It's so easy, fast, and tastes just lovely, very Thanksgiving-y. I'm craving turkey and stuffing just thinking about it. 

Cranberry-pumpkin bread.

1 1/8 C sugar

1/2 C pumpkin

1/3 C oil

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 Tbsp vanilla

1 1/8 C flour

1/2 C chopped pecans

1/2 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 Tsp baking soda

1/4 Tsp salt

1 C chopped fresh cranberries. 

Makes 1 loaf.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees; spray loaf pan with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, eggs, and vanilla, mixing well. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine remaining bread ingredients except cranberries. Make a well, then pour the pumpkin mixture into the center. Using a wooden spoon, slowly blend, mixing until dry ingredients are well combined. Fold the cranberries into the batter.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf pan; bake, 55 minutes to one hour, or until tester comes out clean. Remove the loaf pan from the oven, and place on a wire rack to cool about 10 minutes before removing the loaf from the pan.

The recipe can easily be doubled to make two loaves, which we'll usually bake on Thanksgiving morning, saving one for dinner and snacking on the other throughout the day. If you make two loaves, the bread freezes well, so you can hide one away for later. Or, better yet, make both, keep one, and take the other over to a friend's house to share!

Happy weekend baking!