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Easy Orange Cranberry Bread

Bread, Christmas, Orange • • 9 Comments

This quick bread smells just like Christmas! Easy Orange Cranberry Bread is perfectly zesty and sweet. Your family will beg you to make this every holiday season!

Make sure you check out all my Christmas recipes for your holiday baking this year!

Orange Cranberry Bread for Christmas

I love making quick breads for the holidays. They’re called “quick breads” because they don’t use any yeast so there isn’t any rise time which makes them… quicker to make! This Easy Orange Cranberry Bread comes together fast and looks gorgeous after it’s baked. Plus, it cuts like a dream which is always a wonderful plus when serving or giving away slices to family.

Christmas Bread

I love cranberries. I know not everyone’s love of cranberries is as intense as mine so pairing cranberries with other flavors is always a great idea. The bright, sweet and zesty orange flavor is a great match for the punch of a cranberry. You can always leave your cranberries in halves (like I did) instead of smaller pieces if you want more of a cranberry taste in the bread. Or even add some walnuts for my old sour friends out there!

Even the batter is just so pretty!

I love to line my loaf pans with parchment. I let it hang over a little on the sides and then I spray my favorite baking spray on the sides without parchment. When the loaf is done baking and nearly cooled I can just lift up on the parchment and the whole loaf comes out perfectly! Oh! another Pro Tip! I drop a few extra cranberries on top of the batter so that when it bakes up you can still see them. This makes your Easy Orange Cranberry Bread picture perfect every time!

The orange bread and the red cranberries just look gorgeous together. Can you see the flecks of orange zest in the slices? Dreamy… and tasty.

In the recipe notes I’ve added an optional Orange Glaze to top the loaf. Add the glaze if you want to make the loaf sweeter and more dessert like. I like omitting a glaze when I plan to wrap up the loaf to give away because I find wrapping glazed breads to be a little messy. Either way, this Easy Orange Cranberry Bread it a HIT and your family will love waking up to the smell of this in the kitchen.

4.84 from 6 votes
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Easy Orange Cranberry Bread

The perfect zesty and sweet quick bread for the holidays! This Orange Cranberry Bread will make your whole house smell like Christmas!

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 cup sugar
  • zest of 3 large oranges
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 Tbsp. orange juice fresh
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 cup fresh cranberries chopped or halved

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a loaf pan with parchment or grease it well.

  2. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and sugar in a bowl. Set aside.

  3. In a large bowl, whisk together orange zest, buttermilk, oil, eggs, orange juice and vanilla.

  4. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet and gently fold together. Just before it's combined, add in cranberries and stir JUST until combined.

  5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about an hour, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

Recipe Notes

Optional Orange Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

zest of 1 orange, optional

1-2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice

 

-Slowly add in orange juice to powdered sugar and whisk.  Only add as much juice as needed to get a thick but pourable consistency.  

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Comments

  5. Long says

    5 stars
    A very good recipe! I increased the orange juice to 1 cup and added a tsp of cinnamon, but otherwise didn’t change anything except that I used dried cranberries. It’s moist and delicious!

    Reply
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