Cranberry Walnut Bread

For the last day of this month long baking marathon, I have a sweet bread with cranberries and nuts. Couple of weeks ago I was looking for muffin recipes for my third week theme and found this one. Later I found strawberry muffin recipe and opted to bake that instead.

This weekend as I was deciding on the final bake, this recipe caught my attention again. I have heard a lot about how King Arthur Flour recipes being foolproof. I decided to go safe and selected this one. This can be baked in a loaf pan to make a bread or in a muffin pan for muffin. This is a Thanksgiving recipe but I did not want to wait till November to bake the bread.

This bread is soft and has a dense texture, as seen in the pictures. Though the texture is dense, it was soft and tasted good. Cranberries are coarsely chopped and it blend well into the bread. While preparing I thought of skipping the step of chopping the cranberries but I am glad I did. Cranberries are chopped in the food processor and hence it was not too much of a work either. Since the bread has dense texture I felt it would have been better as a muffin.

Husband also liked the bread. It was not very sweet as per his liking. The recipe called for sprinkling sugar on the top before baking which I skipped. I made half the recipe and used a mini loaf. My loaf pan was slightly smaller for this recipe and the batter/dough almost filled the pan. I was afraid it would overflow when baking but nothing of that sort happened but the bread had a deeper depth/height.

The bread stayed fresh for a day. I made it in the after and stayed fresh until next morning for my breakfast. Recipe says this bread stays fresh for 2 – 3 days at room temperature, when well wrapped. I stored it in an airtight container for a day. Enjoy the bread until I prepare the recap of this marathon.

Source: King Arthur Flour
Total Time: 55 – 65 minutes
Preparation: 10 – 15 minutes
Bake Time: 45 – 50 minutes
Yields: 1 mini Loaf (6 x 3 ½”)

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. Butter
2 tbsp. (⅛ cup) Vegetable Oil
⅙ cup Granulated Sugar
⅙ cup Brown Sugar (I used dark and made sure both granulated and brown sugars were ⅓ cup)
1 large Egg
¾ tsp. Baking Powder
¼ tsp. Baking Soda
¼ tsp. Cinnamon Powder
⅜ tsp. Salt
½ tsp. Vanilla Extract
A dash to ⅛ tsp. Almond Extract (opt. but I used it)
⅜ cup Sour Cream or Yogurt, full-fat or low fat (I used nonfat yogurt)
½ cup All-Purpose Flour
½ cup White While Wheat Flour (I used atta/chapathi flour)
½ cup dried Cranberries
¼ cup Walnuts
While Sparkling Sugar or Demerara Sugar for topping (opt. and l did not use)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Grease a mini loaf pan and keep ready.
In a medium sized bowl beat together butter, vegetable oil and sugar until smooth.
Add egg and continue beating until combined.
Add baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, vanilla extract, almond extract, yogurt and beat just until all the ingredients are well incorporated to the butter egg mixture.
Take flours and cranberries in a food processor bowl and process until berries are coarsely chopped. Add walnuts pulse for a few seconds until nuts are chopped. Be careful, you need to pulse it 2-3 times and before you realize nuts could become a coarse powder.
Stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture just until everything is combined. I set my beater to low, to stir in the flour. This can be done using a wooden spoon as well.
Drop the batter in to prepared load pan, sprinkle with coarse sparkling sugar or Demerara sugar, if using.
Bake in a preheated oven, middle rack for 45 – 50 minutes or until tester inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Mine took 50 minutes to bake.
Allow the loaf to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, turn it onto a rack and let completely before slicing.
Serve the bread warm or at room temperature.
Bread stays fresh for 2 – 3 days at room temperature, well wrapped. I stored it in an airtight container for a day. Bread can also be frozen for longer storage.
Muffins: To make muffins, grease the muffin pan or line with liners.
Fill the batter ¾ full in each muffin cavity, sprinkle sugar topping if using and bake for 14 – 15 minutes at 425 F in a preheated oven. Muffins are done when a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Tilt muffins and let cool for a bit, transfer to a cooling rack.
This recipe should yield 6 regular size muffins.