Orange Cranberry Bread

4.74 from 23 votes

Orange cranberry bread is oil-free, nut-free, and refined sugar-free. Made with whole-food ingredients, each piece of bread is full of fresh cranberries that pop in your mouth with fresh orange flavor in each moist bite.

Prep Time10

Cook Time50

Total Time1

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Diet: Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian

Servings: servings

Calories: 137kcal

Author: Kathy Carmichael

Ingredients

2 cups Whole wheat flour or any flour of choice; gluten-free flour can be used as well
2 teaspoons Baking powder
½ teaspoon Baking soda
½ teaspoon Salt
1 cup Freshly squeezed orange juice
½ cup Unsweetened apple sauce or 1 flax egg
½ Orange zested
1 ½ cups Fresh cranberries
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
½ cup Maple syrup or ¾ coconut sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
Stir the dry ingredients, and combine the baking powder, soda, and salt with the flour.
Now add the apple sauce, orange juice, maple syrup, zest, vanilla, and cinnamon, and stir by hand, focusing on incorporating the flour mixture at the bowl's bottom. DO NOT OVER-STIR. Ensure all the dry and wet ingredients create a thick and lumpy batter.
Now, fold in the cranberries, making sure to fold gently to keep the berries intact.
Using a silicone bread pan or a pan lined with parchment paper, pour the bread batter into the pan, scraping down the bowl's sides to get all the batter.
Then, place some individual cranberries on top of the bread, randomly placing them. This adds more cranberry flavor and makes the bread pretty,
Cook for 50-55 minutes. If using a silicone bread pan, check the bread 45 minutes in, as silicone pans generally take less cooking time.
To check to ensure the bread is cooked, place a knife through the middle. It should come out clean. If there is batter on the blade, cook for 5 minutes.

Notes

First, DO NOT use an electric mixer. Instead, stir the batter by hand, and DO NOT overmix. One of the biggest mistakes people make when baking is overmixing, which results in flat, dry bread.

Another tip when vegan baking is to ensure you stir the baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the flour, so it is equally distributed before adding the wet ingredients.

Because I didn't use vegan butter and flax egg, the wet ingredients are added to the same bowl once the dry ingredients are stirred.

Folding the cranberries into the batter after the batter is stirred allows the berries to stay whole and the juice to stay inside the berries.

Since I don't cook with oil, there are two tricks to making orange cranberry bread that won't stick.

Use a non-stick silicone bread pan.

Line a bread pan with parchment paper before pouring the bread batter into the pan.

Additionally, allowing the bread to cool completely enhances the flavors and keeps the bread from crumbling. Although my family wants the orange cranberry bread immediately, waiting until it is completely cooled or covering the bread and waiting until the next day is even better.

Nutrition