Cranberry bread

There was a Ballroom/Salsa Fusion party this last Sunday (December 14, 2008) to which I was invited by the awesomest dancer Laura Geldys. The idea was to meet at her place and have a nice brunch with a bunch of friends. Needless to say, I got there late.

In my usual Puerto Rican way, if I'm invited to a food-or-music-related event, I get there about an hour late... and that would probably make me the first one to arrive, having to wait on the others to start moving their asses.

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more... or in Puerto Rico, for that matter.

So yeah, I got there about an hour late, but the reason (there's always a reason, you see) this time was that I was baking cranberry bread, and I decided to start it half an hour before the appointed time, while knowing it would take me an hour to bake, plus about an extra half hour to get there. If this all sounds confusing, suffice it to say that I'm not a good planner.

Why cranberry bread, you ask? Well...a few weeks after Thanksgiving, all grocery stores are selling turkey at very low prices. Now, I don't eat turkey, of course, but I went and got the next best thing: fresh cranberries! They had two bags for the price of one, and even better, they lowered the base price. It was a deal and I decided to play along and make something with them.

The recipe for this bread was adapted from one in a book. I changed some proportions and ingredients; I also made it vegan.

2 cups chopped fresh cranberries
1/2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup almond milk
4 tablespoons corn starch
the grated rind of 1 orange

Now, how do you chop fresh cranberries? I, personally, don't have any special "cranberry chopper machine". And if I used a food processor, I would end with cranberry paste. We don't want that. So, the simple answer is: chop patiently by hand.

Chop, chop, chop... pick up the pieces... chop, chop, chop... lather, rinse, repeat

Once you have about two cups of those [coarsely] chopped cranberries, mix them in a small bowl with the regular sugar. Stir it well so that they are all covered. Set it aside.

On a bigger, better bowl, mix the dry ingredients first, fold in the brown sugar as best as you can, then add all the liquid ingredients. Mix well and make sure you break any brown sugar lumps. Now you can mix in the cranberries. Again, mix well.

Now for the easy part: grease and flour a loaf pan, pour the mixture in there and level it as best as you can. Now bake for about an hour at 350F. Let it stand for a while before eating.

The bread was very good, in my humble and modest opinion, although it was very crumbly; I need to find a better emulsifier than corn starch (which was the substitute for the eggs called for in the original recipe), for it next time. Later I learned that it tasted even better if you toasted it on a pan with a dollop of butter, but that wouldn't be very vegan-friendly, would it? ;)

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