Cranberry Orange Quick Bread — The fresh cranberries in this cranberry orange bread contrast nicely with the sweet orange glaze, making it the perfect blend of sweet and tart!
Moist Cranberry Orange Bread Recipe
The combination of cranberries and oranges is just wonderful and reminds me that the holidays are just around the corner.
This cranberry orange bread bread is fast, easy, and you don’t even need a mixer to make it. It’s soft, tender, springy, and loaded with fresh, juicy cranberries in every bite.
The bread is wonderfully perfumed with both orange zest and orange juice, and the sweet orange glaze drizzled on top helps balance the tartness of the cranberries.
I used oil rather than butter, which keeps the bread moister. Rather than using buttermilk I combined Silk Unsweetened Cashewmilk with lemon juice to mimic the moisturizing and tenderizing effects of buttermilk while keeping the loaf dairy-free.
Silk is so irresistibly creamy and thick but with fewer calories than skim milk. Eating more plant-based protein is a great goal and Silk Cashewmilk or Silk Almond Milk are my milks of choice for baking and smoothies.
They’re so low in calories and fat, they’re vegan and dairy-free, and I always get impressive-tasting results. It’s the perfect match between tasty and guilt-free. An easy swap for your seasonal and holiday recipes.
What’s in the Cranberry Orange Quick Bread?
I made this cranberry orange bread with glaze, but it’s technically optional. To make this cranberry orange quick bread recipe, you’ll need:
- Unsweetened cashew milk
- Lemon juice
- Egg
- Canola oil
- Granulated sugar
- Light brown sugar
- Orange zest
- Orange juice
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda and baking powder
- Salt
- Fresh cranberries
- Confectioners’ sugar
How to Make Cranberry Orange Quick Bread
First, stir together the cashew milk and lemon juice and set it aside for 10 minutes. This gives the milk time to curdle a bit (this will mimic buttermilk).
Then, add the egg, oil, sugars, orange zest, orange juice, and vanilla extract to a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the milk mixture and stir to combine.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, then fold in the cranberries. Turn the batter into a greased 9×5-inch pan and bake until the edges are set and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Once the bread is done baking, let it cool completely before drizzle the orange glaze over top.
Can I Use Another Type of Milk?
Yes, any unsweetened milk (dairy or non-dairy) should work in this recipe. And if you have real buttermilk on hand you could use that in place of the cashew milk and lemon juice.
Can I Use Frozen Cranberries?
I’ve only ever made this cranberry orange bread as written, so I’m not sure how it’d turn out using frozen berries. If you try it out, please leave me a comment below letting me know how your bread tastes!
Can I Use Dried Cranberries?
Most likely, yes, although I’ve only made this cranberry orange loaf as written. Note that dried cranberries won’t release moisture like fresh ones do, so that may affect the texture of the bread.
Can I Use Mini Loaf Pans?
Yes, but I’m not sure what the exact bake time would be with mini loaf pans since all pans, ovens, climates, etc. will differ.
Can Cranberry Orange Bread Be Frozen?
Yes! This cranberry orange quick bread freezes incredibly well if wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and / or stored in a freezer bag. You don’t want to freeze this quick bread with the glaze on, though!
Tips for the Best Cranberry Orange Bread
When making the cranberry quick bread glaze, you’ll have to play around with the amount of juice you add to achieve the right consistency.
Also, you’ll likely have some glaze leftover. I like to spread it on the cut side of the bread as if I was buttering toast. You can never have too much glaze!
Make sure to give your orange a thorough wash under warm tap water before zesting it. The peel can contain chemicals leftover from growing the fruit, and you don’t want to zest that directly into your bread.
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Cranberry Orange Bread with Sweet Orange Glaze
The fresh cranberries in this cranberry orange bread contrast nicely with the sweet orange glaze, making it the perfect blend of sweet and tart!
Ingredients
Bread
- 1/2 cup Silk Unsweetened Cashewmilk (Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almondmilk or another milk may be substituted)
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon orange zest (from about 1 large orange)
- 1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (from about 1 large orange)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 2 cups fresh cranberries, plus more for sprinkling
Glaze
- 2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
- about 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray one 9×5-inch loaf pan with floured cooking spray, or grease and flour the pan; set aside.
- To a medium bowl or large glass measuring cup, add the milk, lemon juice, and stir to combine; set aside for about 10 minutes. This will cause the milk to curdle a bit so that it resembles and acts like buttermilk.
- To a large bowl, add the egg, oil, sugars, orange zest (zest the orange before juicing it), orange juice, vanilla extract, and whisk to combine.
- Add the milk and lemon juice mixture and whisk to combine.
- Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and stir to combine; don’t overmix.
- Add the cranberries and stir to combine. (I haven’t tried the recipe with dried cranberries.)
- Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula and pushing it into corners and sides as necessary.
Evenly sprinkle a few cranberries over the top. - Bake for about 70 minutes and tent pan with a sheet of foil at the 30-minute mark by loosely draping a sheet of foil over the top and sides of pan. This prevents top and sides of bread from becoming overly browned before the center cooks through. Bread is done when the top is set in the center, domed, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center (if you can find a patch without hitting cranberries) comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter. Baking times will vary based on oven and climate variances, how moist the cranberries are, etc. Bake until your bread is done in your oven.
- Allow bread to cool in pan for about 20 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool completely before glazing.
- To a large bowl, add the confectioners’ sugar, orange juice, and whisk to combine until smooth. You may have to play with the sugar and juice ratios slightly to achieve desired glaze consistency.
- Evenly drizzle glaze over bread, noting you will likely have extra. I spread the extra glaze on the cut slices of the bread as if I was buttering toast.
Notes
Bread will keep airtight at room temp for up to 5 days. Unglazed bread will keep airtight in the freezer for up to 4 months.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 392Total Fat: 12gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 19mgSodium: 274mgCarbohydrates: 68gFiber: 2gSugar: 43gProtein: 4g
More Cranberry Desserts:
Cranberry and White Chocolate Chip Cookies – Soft, chewy, buttery, perfectly sweetened with white chocolate, and so much texture from the cranberries!
Cranberry Bliss Bars {Starbucks Copycat Recipe} – They taste just like the real thing and you can make them at home, year-round! Think of all the $ you’ll save. Spot-on, easy recipe!
Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Bliss Cake – The flavors of Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bars in a soft, easy, no-mixer cake!
Cranberry Chocolate Chip Blondies – Super soft, buttery bars packed with chewy cranberries! And there’s a chocolate overload in every bite!
Crustless Cranberry Pie —A FAST, super EASY, no-mixer dessert that’s perfect for holiday entertaining!! Somewhere in between pie, cake, and blondies is what you get with this FESTIVE recipe!
Cranberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars — The bars are soft, slightly chewy, and the hearty oats with big crumbles are a perfect contrast to the juicy cranberry filling.
Cranberry Bliss Seven Layer Bars — These bars feature a buttery graham cracker crust that’s topped with white chocolate chips, chocolate chips, walnuts, dried cranberries, coconut, and sweetened condensed milk.
Post brought to you by Silk. The recipe, images, text, and opinions expressed are my own.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Silk. The opinions and text are all mine.
Wonderful recipe. I have made this a number of times when cranberries are in season but also for our church bazaar bake table (where it always sells out), Today I also tried it with some tart cherries that were crying out to be used. Really very good.Thanks for this go-to recipe.
I am so glad to hear this is a go-to recipe for you and that the tart cherries worked well here, too!
Is there something i could sub for the canola or vegetable oil? Coconut oil, butter, or even apple sauce? (I know some people use apple sauce in place of oil in recipes)
I would go with coconut oil versus the other choices you listed.
Ok thanks.
This was so good! We ate it for breakfast over several mornings and it never got stale, and the flavor combo was perfectly tart and sweet. I used leftover cranberries that i had frozen from Thanksgiving and it worked perfectly, didn’t even have to thaw them :)
I have a bunch of frozen cranberries too :) I should make this bread with them! Glad you loved this!
Hi Averie,
I woukd like to make this recipe into mini loaves. Do you know approximately how much time they would need to bake?
Thank you!
No I don’t because all pans and ovens vary.
Hi there :) Is there any way to use dried cranberries as a substitute? My local grocery store doesn’t have fresh cranberries in season just yet. Thanks! Chas
I haven’t tried using dried so can’t say for sure about the results.
Hi there Averie! :) I used the dry cranberries and they tasted great! Thanks for the recipe!
Glad to hear that dried worked great!
Oh man I need to get my hands on some more cranberries cause this looks awesome! That glaze is the perfect finish and seals the deal.
This looks amazing!! I’m wondering if I can substitute the almost milk for regular 2% milk? Would it make much of a difference??
almond* not almost
I think that swap would be fine! Enjoy!
I always alter recipes a bit to suit my family’s taste. This was the rare time I made a recipe exactly as written because it looked just right. Just pulled this gorgeous bread from the oven and glazed it. I can tell it’s going to be another hit from your website. Looking forward to making your pumpkin carrot cake in the next week or so!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! And it’s great you were able to make it as-is, no tweaking necessary! LMK how the pumpkin carrot cake goes!
I LOVE the combo of cranberry and oranges and this bread just looks so moist and delicious. Especially with that orange glaze on top. I wish I had a slice to eat right now!
Cranberries and orange pair so well together. I love that you used the word springy to describe this bread – it made me want it even more!
Thanks for sharing the recipe. It sounds very interesting and I will be giving it a try very shortly. I enjoy using seasonable flavours and as it is the orange season her now your timing is perfect!
Thanks again.
This looks delicious!
Your photos really bring out the colour and softness of the bread.
Will be trying this out.
Thanks
This bread looks absolutely amazing! I’m definitely going to have to try making this before Christmas!
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
I just picked up my first (GIGANTIC) bag of cranberries yesterday! Adding this gorgeous bread to my must-bake list!
where did you find gigantic sized bags of cranberries?
Seasonally, fresh cranberries are kept in the produce section of the grocery store. It’s not really a gigantic bag, just the standard size. I believe about 12-16 ounces (from memory).
Maggie, I found a huge bag of fresh cranberries at Sam’s Club (I’m in Southern California). They had a ton!
I swear you are the only blogger that makes me crave bready type foods! You almost never see cranberry bread with fresh cranberries, and the dried ones are just….candy to me. Great on their own, but not for bread. I still love the orange-cranberry combo, and I will never tire of it!
I love baking cookies and bars (and making salads and savory stuff too) with dried cranberries but in cakes, muffins, breads, etc. I really love fresh berries! Glad I am the only blogger who can make you crave bready stuff! The sweet orange glaze with the tart berries…this was heavenly!
Ooh, I was just thinking about baking with cranberries last week, and look, you knew it and wrote a recipe for me. That’s the way it happened, right? ;)
Exactly! :) And I had wanted to post this recipe awhile back, or something like this, but my grocery store didn’t get fresh cranberries in until the first week of Nov.! I was ready for this a few weeks ago already!
Any bread that you can make without a mixer is wonderful to me. I just love cranberries in breads and muffins. Immediately the whole house smells wonderful.
This is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!
Awww, thank you :)
I love cranberry and orange together. It’s a match made in heaven :)
The balance of the tart berries and the sweet orange glaze was definitely a match made in heaven!
I’m into it. I love the vibrant colors – they are like you, sunshine! While it doesn’t sound necessary, I bet it would be devilishly divine with a citrus butter.
Citrus butter sounds amazing! And with the citrus glaze, it would be perfect!
Zest is always good, right?! Your bread looks like it needed to be eaten by me like hours ago! IT LOOKS TO DIE FOR! I can’t even stop looking at it’s sweetness.
I never bake with cranberries I always just make cranberry sauce. This bread looks so yummy I can’t wait to give it a try all your bread recipes are always a success it nice to have such confidence it your recipes.
If you have extra cranberries that don’t go into your cranberry sauce, now you can bake bread! Thanks for the compliments about my recipes!
That orange zest makes SUCH a difference. I never fail to be amazed at how much flavor is in those little shavings of citrus zest! This looks absolutely perfect, Averie!
Those little shavings are like flavor bombs, aren’t they! :)
What a lovely bread, Averie! I think I’ll have to make a few loaves of this for Thanksgiving morning. :)
If you try it, LMK!
I haven’t tried this type of flavor combination in a quick bread before but it sounds good. I love using zest in anything. Cranberries bake up so well–a little oozing of color but they don’t run all over and stain the batter.
The balance of the tart berries and the sweet orange glaze is just so good together! And unlike blueberries which have a knack for bursting and turning everything a murky shade of gray, cranberries don’t tend to run like that!