Like Thanksgiving in July: Cranberry Walnut Bread

My favorite Thanksgiving dish is my grandmother's cranberry relish. It is sweet and tart, juicy and crunchy, and amazing with the tofu turkey. Thanksgiving in my family is done potluck style so no one has to slave over a stove all day. Plus we get to feed each other all the love we put into our dishes. My grandmother made the cranberry relish and I always took a big serving home with me. After moving to California and spending my first Thanksgiving without my family I was convinced I would forever miss out on my grandma's famous cranberry relish. I thought surely she did something magical that I would never be able to reproduce. I decided to try my luck at making it, just to see how it would turn out. I emailed her to ask for the recipe, and this is what she emailed me back:

1 bag fresh cranberries
1 cup granulated sugar
1 whole orange
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Put cranberries, sugar and whole orange (with peel) in food processor and finely chop. Stir in pecans. Refrigerate overnight.

That's it! That was her famous recipe! I couldn't believe it was so...simple. And what's more - after buying a bag of oceanspray cranberries I saw that it is the recipe on the back of the bag! I couldn't believe that all those years I had thought that it was my grandma's own secret recipe. It was like learning that the tooth fairy isn't real. Although my heart broke just a little, I now make my own "special grandma's cranberry relish" every Thanksgiving.

This week for the BBA Challenge I made the Cranberry Walnut bread. I got up this morning prepared to make cinnamon raisin bread, but as I started pulling things out of my cabinets I realized that both my shortening and my raisins were over a year expired! So without hesitation I decided just to skip ahead and make the cranberry walnut bread instead.

I knew as soon as I started that I wanted to make it taste as similar to my "grandma's famous relish" as possible. In order to achieve this, I used pecans instead of walnuts. I also knew I wanted that orange flavor. Unfortunately I didn't have orange extract, so I used 1 T vanilla and 1/2 T lemon extract. For the orange flavor I added the zest of 1 orange. This not only had a wonderful flavor, but it made this dough even more beautiful.

And now the pictures:

Beautiful dough, all mixed together. I had to add quite a bit more flour to make the dough "slightly tacky but not sticky".

The top and bottom braided dough. I was tempted to roll out each strand longer because at this length it was very hard to braid. Each strand was only "braided" 2 times, making more of a twisted lump shape than a braid. But I'm glad I resisted, because the plump strands make the delicious, doughy bread that came out of the oven.


All done! The crust...

...And the crumb

Happy eating!