Breads and more breads!

There’s been a bit of quiet in my blog the last two weeks and there’s good reason. I don’t have a kitchen right now and you all know how serious a matter this is to me. You see, the waste pipe in my second floor bathroom leaked through my ceiling destroyed my cabinets, microwave and stove. I know. It’s disgusting. Human feces in my kitchen. That’s why it’s an off limits zone and I’ve had a remediation company blowing industrial fans and sterilizing our contamination zone. I’ve not been cooking. Not a bad reason huh?

Instead I’ve been dealing with remediation, plumbers, restoration, insurance and contractors. And I’ve been emptying cabinets and setting up a makeshift kitchen in my dining room where I can at least microwave or toaster oven to my hearts content.

My family has been surviving on the generosity of friends cooking for us (thank you Liz!), some food that had been previously frozen from cooking dates, tons of restaurant meals and take out. But now that we’re officially sick of take out and I’m realizing that this will be months before I have a new kitchen, I have to begin phase two of coping without a kitchen.

But that’s where my lifestyle — cooking with friends — swoops in and saves the day. I may not have my kitchen but I do have my friend’s kitchens and that’s where I plan to do my cooking and baking. I can’t survive without our Fall family favorites such as apple, pumpkin and cranberry breads, muffins, cakes and pies. And so last Thursday, I kicked off my determination to cook without a kitchen and headed to Jackie’s house. With flour flying, batter splattering, I thought Jackie was going to have a meltdown when I took her kitchen by storm on Thursday. Maybe I should have been focused on dinners so we didn’t have to eat Costco foods another week, but instead we did an insane amount of baking — a whopping 22 pumpkin, cranberry and banana mini loaves and 72 mini muffins! I think I got the baking itch out of my system! Thank you Jackie — dinner next time!

Zesty Cranberry Bread

Print Recipe

If you love the tartness of fresh whole cranberries, you’ll love this bread. Make several loaves ahead of time and freeze for the holidays and serve as a side with your festive meal or for breakfast to overnight guests. You can also give the bread as gifts to neighbors and friends.

Servings	Prep Time
4 mini loaves	20 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Servings Prep Time 4 mini loaves 20 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Zesty Cranberry Bread Print Recipe If you love the tartness of fresh whole cranberries, you’ll love this bread. Make several loaves ahead of time and freeze for the holidays and serve as a side with your festive meal or for breakfast to overnight guests. You can also give the bread as gifts to neighbors and friends. Servings Prep Time 4 mini loaves 20 minutes Cook Time 30 minutes Servings Prep Time 4 mini loaves 20 minutes Cook Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp orange zest
• 2 cups flour white
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 2 cups cranberries chopped

Streusel Topping

• 1/4 cup flour white
• 4 tbsp brown sugar light brown
• 4 tbsp butter cut into diced pieces

Glaze

• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 tbsp orange juice

Servings: mini loaves

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray mini loaf pans with baking spray.
3. Using an electric mixer of Kitchen Aid, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add the eggs and zest. Beat well.
4. In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together.
5. Add to the wet ingredients and beat alternatively with the buttermilk and orange juice.
6. Stir in the cranberries. Distribute the batter and streusel topping among desired number of pans and bake for approximately 30-35 minutes until golden and cooked through. Cool, remove from pans and if desired, drizzle glaze.