cranberry-orange nut bread

I don't know if this is true elsewhere in the country, but here in New England, come autumn you start to see fresh cranberries being advertised in the supermarket circulars. Once upon a time, some savvy cranberry marketing genius came up with the "buy two, freeze one" tagline, which was then placed on the cranberry packaging and in the supermarket ad copy. I am guessing that once the fresh cranberry supply runs out in the fall, that's it for consumers who are looking for fresh or even frozen cranberries, or else why would we have to take it upon ourselves to preemptively scoop up the cranberries and hold them in our own home freezers?

I generally ignore such mandates from food packaging and advertising but this year, crazy manic baker that I've become, I decided this buying and freezing idea might have some merit. And as I usually make a cranberry relish from scratch at Thanksgiving anyway, buying 2 bags (I even considering buying 3 or 4) seemed pretty reasonable. As it turns out, I didn't end up making my usual cranberry relish this Thanksgiving, so I ended up with 2 bags of cranberries in my freezer at the end of November. My thoughts turned to coming up with something to make with all the cranberries I had now burning a hole in my freezer and despite being the mostly delighted new owner of a side-by-side refrigerator, I was ever mindful that freezer space is always at a premium.

To my shock and surprise, I discovered that all those cranberry-themed recipes I had been imagining when I bought those fresh cranberries don't actually require the use of fresh (or frozen) cranberries. The majority of the recipes called for dried cranberries, which are readily available year-round.

Part two of my thought process was that I've been contemplating different quick bread recipes to bake and give as gifts. I've never been a big fan of cranberry breads, largely because all the cranberry bread I've ever consumed has been off supermarket bakery catering platters and they were disgustingly artificial tasting and memorable only in that regard. But with 2 bags of cranberries staring me in the face, I decided to have faith in my culinary abilities and give cranberry bread another try.

I found a recipe for Cranberry-Orange Nut Bread in my King Arthur Flour cookbook and decided to give it a whirl. The recipe calls for fresh, frozen or dried cranberries, orange juice and extract (or if you'd rather, orange zest and juice), walnuts and buttermilk (as luck would have it, I still had some buttermilk left from making cornbread for Thanksgiving stuffing -- oh joy!). The finished bread was moist and subtly orangey -- not overwhelmingly orange with that fakey taste so prominent in the supermarket cranberry breads. The chopped cranberry and walnut bits didn't overwhelm, which pleased my chunk-phobic husband. The bread was very light on sweetness, something that might not be true if I had made it with the dried cranberries (which are sweetened). Not being a typical cranberry bread fan I'm not sure I'd put it on my must-bake list (date nut bread would come first, for starters), but aficionados of tart fruit and nut breads might really enjoy this one.