Cranberry season!

Hello Friends,

 Today's blog post has two parts, both using cranberry as the main ingredient. Part one, cranberry raisin pumpkin bread, is a recipe from the book,  Baking with Julia, by Dorie Greenspan (Pg.108.) This recipe, a two day bake, makes a wonderfully tender, rich, brioche like bread. Well worth the time. Part two, is a rustic cranberry coffee cake/pie. By contrast, I threw this one together in 20 minutes. The recipe is from my new friend Diane. Diane, is the owner of Diane's Dynamics, a blog page dedicated to the homesteading lifestyle. I will drop links to both Dorie's page and Diane's page at the end of the post. Go there and you will find the exact recipes. Lets get started!

Cranberry raisin pumpkin brioche bread

This recipe make three small loafs, I made two big ones. I used, 91/2x6x3 loaf pans. You will definitely need a mixer for this dough. The dough is sticky, heavy and takes a while to come together. Additionally, you will need some experience. There are a few variables you will have to work with, such as the amount of liquid in your pumpkin. I had to use my experience in bread making to add enough extra flour to form a nice dough. The dough took a good 20 min. to come together, at medium speed, in my kitchen aid mixer. Here's what it looked like

The dough takes some time, but once it comes together it makes a nice, albeit sticky, dough. 

I left the dough to rise at room temperature for two hours. By then it had doubled. I gently deflated the dough and put it in the refrigerator for a slow, cold, overnight ferment. By the next morning it had doubled again. At this point the dough would sit till it reached room temp. I set an instant read thermometer for 68F. 

After about five hours we were up to temp. I rolled the dough onto a lightly floured counter, split it into two equal halves. One at a time, I carefully stretched the dough into 15x 8 inch rectangles. Then I rolled the dough up jellyroll style from the short end, carefully sealing as I rolled. Alas, I should have did a letter fold and a bench rest before rolling, I missed a step. No worries, it came out okay. Now the shaped breads are in the pans for the final proofing. 

 After a two hour proof they were doubled, puffy and ready for the oven; so I popped them in.

They cooked in a well preheated oven at 350F. for 35 minutes. They came out perfectly done. 

I really like this holiday treat bread. It's so good plain, or toasted with butter! It takes some time and a little work, but well worth the effort!

The last photo is a sneak peak at part two!

You can get the recipe over at Dorie Greenspan's page:  This Bountiful Backyard

Don't forget to come back and tell me how it worked for you.

Part two:

Cranberry, orange coffee cake / pie

I had about three cups of nice plump juicy cranberries left after using one cup in the brioche bread. 

My friend Diane shared her recipe for this "peach" of a cranberry pie with me. While the bread was in the oven I quickly assembled the needed components.

• Unsalted butter
• Cranberries
• Sugar (I used Brown)
• Orange juice and zest
• Salt
• Eggs
• Vanilla
• A.P. flour

That was the hardest part of this recipe. Now all that was left was to mix it all together in the pie pan.

I was not sure if the pie was going to be too tart. To my delight, it was not! It was so tasty and just tart enough! This will definitely grace the Falzon holiday table this year! Thanks Diane, this is a winner! I owe you a chicken dinner! Stop back soon, The Delicata squash in the photo will be pumpkin/ squash pie soon!

Diane has the full recipe at her homestead: 

Diane's Dynamics Cranberry Pie