Every year when I decorate my house for the fall, I put out my orange pumpkin pie dish as part of the decoration. I had this adorable pie dish shaped like a pumpkin for many years, but I have never baked a pumpkin pie or any other pie in it. This year though, this dish was finally put into good use as a bread warmer for my cranberry-orange pumpkin bread!
Baking Pumpkin Bread for the Very First Time
I like pumpkin bread and always enjoyed a loaf baked by a friend but I never baked one myself. When I came across a Pumpkin Cranberry Bread recipe few months ago by Ken Haedrich, the celebrated baker however, I definitely wanted to give it a try. I also love that his recipe calls for butter and not vegetable oil. Butter is always better!
Wonderful books by Ken Haedrich, including the Old Farmers Almanac, Every Day Baking is featured is available on Amazon.
Cranberries, Oranges and Pumpkin Puree
Original recipe calls for sweetened, dry cranberries but I used fresh cranberries since it’s in season right now and I wanted my pumpkin bread filled with soft, juicy fruit. To balance the tartness of fresh cranberries, orange zest and fresh orange juice were also added. I’m big on citrus and when you’re cooking or baking with cranberries, you have to have orange for sweet, refreshing flavor!
I also need to rave about the Trader Joe’s organic pumpkin puree. This is not the same old, overly sweet and gooey puree that some of us have encountered in the past. This organic puree contains natural sweetness of pumpkins, not heavy and it’s delicious! I ended up buying five more cans to stock up and also made a pot of pumpkin soup!
When all the ingredients were mixed and folded in, I spooned the batter into the buttered loaf pan. 9 x 5″ loaf pan is standard for this type of recipe, but unfortunately I don’t have a loaf pan that size. So I used a 9.3 x 5.2″ loaf pan instead and the pumpkin bread was done in 55 minutes.
Cranberry-Orange Pumpkin Bread Creates Cozy Fall Aroma Throughout the House!
There is just something incredibly cozy, warm and comfortable about having a bread like this baking in the oven! You can smell the spices and sugar everywhere around your house and you can’t wait to have a piece!
I was a bit nervous about how the bread would turn out, but the pumpkin bread came out prefect! Totally exceeded my expectations. It was super moist, fruity, refreshing and you can taste the warm spices. The pumpkin pie dish did its job by keeping the bread slices nice and warm too. I brewed a pot of tea, took out my Spode Delamere Brown dessert plates to enjoy this delicious bread.
Cranberry-Orange Pumpkin Bread
Equipment
- 9 x 5" Loaf pan or slightly larger 9.3 x 5.2" loaf pan
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 large eggs
- 1¾ cup all purpose flour
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp allspice
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp salt
- ¾ cup cane sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ cup pumpkin puree
- ⅓ cup fresh orange juice
- 2 tbsp orange zest
- 2 cups fresh cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° and butter the loaf pan.
- In a small bowl, combine and sift flour, spices, baking soda, salt and set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar and beat in one egg at a time.
- Combine pumpkin puree, orange zest and juice to the bowl and blend well until mixture is smooth. Add flour gradually and mix until well combined but do not over mix. Lastly, fold in cranberries to the batter.
- Spoon batter into the loaf pan and smooth out the surface with silicone spatula. Bake in the oven for 55 minutes to 1 hour or until the toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Let the pumpkin bread cool in the loaf pan for 10-15 minutes, then take it out of the loaf pan and let the bread cool down completely on a cooling rack.
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