Pineapple Cranberry Bread

"Without bread all is misery."
- William Cobbett, British journalist

The winter boredom/blahs were starting to kick in.
And there were 2 bags of cranberries in the fridge, drawing near to a shriveled, fermented demise.
(Do cranberries ferment?)

So I was forced to do two things:

• Change the look and name of my blog.

• Bake cranberry bread.

And I am now satisfied. For the moment.
I found this cranberry bread recipe at All Recipes. It had some of the highest ratings and reviews, so I decided to give it a whirl.
But I don't like raisins. And then I discovered that we didn't have orange juice.
No biggie.
I just omitted the raisins, and decided to see what Pineapple Cranberry Bread would taste like.

It was quite necessary to sort the cranberries, because, well...some of them were a bit past their prime.


Once you've sorted the good, from the bad, from the ugly, it's time to rinse and chop.

The recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of chopped cranberries, but since I was omitting the raisins, I used closer to 2 cups.

Oh, and I have a confession to make: I had never, until the day I baked this bread, tasted a cranberry. Except for the kind in canned cranberry sauce. Which doesn't really count. Due to that fact, I had also never seen the innards of a cranberry. I was surprised by the light color. And the rather dry texture.
I don't know why, but I was expecting them to be full of red, flavorful, stain-inducing juice. That's how ignorant I was in the realm of cranberries.
Now I know. And now you know my deep, dark secret.
Next, whisk together the dry ingredients, and cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.

Transfer the flour mixture to your mixing bowl if you lack foresight like some of us around here, and add the egg, pineapple juice, and cranberries.
And raisins, if that's what floats your boat.

Mix it...and pour it...and bake it...
In a loaf pan. For 70 minutes. That's right. 1 hour and 10 minutes.

After the first, oh...20 minutes or so of baking time, my beloved, experimental loaf started getting pretty browned. It was a nice color and all, but I was thinking of the 50 minutes it still had to cook. 3000 seconds. A long time, under waves of 350 degree heat. So I freaked out, pulled it out of the oven and cocooned that puppy in enough aluminum foil to ward off extraterrestrial creatures for a looooong time. (Signs, anyone?)
Anyway, that seemed to do the trick.
I just removed the foil about 8 minutes before the end of the cooking time, and all was well.


Nice lookin' loaf, if I may say so.

And it tasted even nicer!
I admit I was a little nervous about tweaking the recipe like that - I mean, replacing orange juice with...with pineapple juice? How daring could I be?!
Kidding. But still, I was a little anxious to know how it would turn out. And the verdict? Definitely a keeper. Though if your not crazy about the taste of cranberries, you may want to stick to the recipe and use 1 1/2 cups.

Here's my modified recipe. The original is here.
Now go forth and bake!

Pineapple Cranberry Bread
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup pineapple
2 cups chopped cranberries
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray or grease one 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
3. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Add egg, orange peel, and orange juice; stir to mix and fold in raisins and cranberries.
4. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool on wire rack.


Happy Cooking!