Cranberry Oranje Juice Bread

Believe it or not, this is actually the first time I have ever cooked or baked with cranberries, but it definitely won’t be the last. This cranberry oranje juice bread is a little sweet, a little tart, and VERY moist. The best part? It’s so darn easy.

My family isn’t big on cranberry salad. My dad prefers cranberry sauce right out of a can on Thanksgiving. I did not attempt to sway that this year, nor will I any year, because that’s what he wants. All it means is that I didn’t grow up eating real cranberries in a sauce to really know what I was missing, if anything.

We had a pitch-in at work on Monday, and someone brought a cranberry salad made with gelatin and crushed pineapples. Not only did I love it, but I left work thinking about what cranberry adventure I was going to go on.

Enter the cranberry oranje juice bread.

I found this recipe from the food blog Just a Taste. The photos may have made me drool a little (but what food doesn’t these days, amiright) and since I had all of the ingredients on hand except the cranberries, I figured, why not?

You can’t get much easier than this bread. I made it in my KitchenAid stand mixer instead of by hand, just because I can. No professional reason here. Mix dry ingredients, add butter and mix, then pour in wet ingredients. The only change I made was with the cranberries – I dusted them with flour, for fear that they may sink into the bread. When I poured the mix into the bread pan, I moved some of the cranberries around so that they were evenly distributed.

It did take about 55 minutes at 350 before it was done, but with so little time used to prepare this, I ended up making it at 9pm. The house smelled SO good.

Oranje juice gives a great citrus flavor to the bread itself, and is a sweet compliments to the cranberries. Just like all fruit, some cranberries are sweeter than others, so I loved the surprise of biting into a sweet one and then finding a tart one right after.

I didn’t change much with this recipe, so please head over to Just a Taste to read the directions and see the lovely pictures. I hope it inspires you to try something new with cranberries before they’re gone!