Eggnog Cranberry Bread

It's been almost a month since I posted a new recipe.  I've been enjoying time with my family and celebrating Thanksgiving.  I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, too!  We ate lots of turkey and watched lots of football and holiday movies.  We even put up our Christmas tree.

We have absolutely no room in our little rental house for a Christmas tree, so we made a paper Christmas tree out of green glitter wrapping paper.  We also made ornaments out of wrapping paper, too.  My girls were actually really excited about making our paper tree.  The positives of having a paper tree are that nothing is breakable and this is going to be so easy to take down after Christmas! :)

This Christmas is going to be different since our Christmas decorations are all in storage while our new house is being built.  We hope to keep things simple and focus on what's most important.

The kids went back to school today after a nice Thanksgiving break.  I decided that I wanted to do some holiday baking this morning.  I went over to my Pinterest boards and decided to try Eggnog Cranberry Bread---two of my favorite holiday flavors combined! 

Recipe Link
Ingredients 
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup eggnog
1/2 cup salted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups fresh cranberries
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of 4 mini loaf pans (5.6x3x2) OR a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, eggnog, melted butter and vanilla. Add egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just moistened (batter may be lumpy). Fold in cranberries.
4. Spoon batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake mini loaves on a baking sheet for 30-40 minutes. Check for done-ness by inserting a toothpick into the center of the loaves--it should come out clean. If using one large bread pan, bake for 45-55 minutes and check for done-ness. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan (if desired) cool completely on a rack.

Adapted from The Corner Kitchen

I used these mini loaf pans instead of making one large loaf. I used 4 mini pans, not 5 for this recipe.

Aren't cranberries so pretty. I love their vibrant red color! I rinsed these and picked out any berries that weren't looking good.

Bottled ground nutmeg would be fine in this recipe, but if you have some fresh nutmeg, it's even better!

First, the dry ingredients

Then, the wet ingredients

Add the wet to the dry and stir until moistened. Then, fold in the cranberries.

I divided the batter between 4 mini loaf pans. I placed the mini loaf pans on a baking sheet lined with foil to make it easy to pull these in and out of the oven and for easier clean-up.

These could make pretty little gifts!

The Results...

These little loaves were so cute!  And I thought the red cranberries help them look so festive for the holidays.  They tasted like little eggnog pound cakes with tart cranberries.  

Not everyone liked the tart cranberries.  My 2 yr. old picked them all out of her piece of bread.  My 6 yr. old spit her bread into the trash can (she thought the cranberries were gross).  My 9 yr. old thought it tasted interesting and gave these loaves 3 (out of 5) stars.  My husband and I also thought the combination of sweet eggnog bread with tart cranberries was interesting.  But, we decided the fresh cranberries were just too tart for us.

I would make this bread again because the eggnog part is delicious! But, I wouldn't add fresh cranberries.  Maybe we would like dried cranberries instead?  If you give this recipe a try, please let me know what you think.  Happy Holiday Baking!

I share recipes at these link parties.

You might also like: Orange Cranberry Quickbread