Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread

The classic children's book Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin prompted a colleague and me, many years ago by now, to collaborate and so got our classes involved in a baking project. We guadrupled the recipe to satisfy all the eager participants and so an annual ritual evolved for my class. The students and my colleagues all enjoyed the results. So to keep in step with the season I pulled out my well-used yellow zeroxed copy of Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread and baked a loaf for old time's sake. It was still warm when I sliced it to take this picture:

I had forgotten the authors' names so I googled the title and got not only their names but also a great synopsis of the book which is still very popular today:

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin was published in 1971 by Parents’ Magazine Press. It is the story of a young girl named Maggie who lives with her Grandmother near a cranberry bog in New England. Each year they each invite a guest to Thanksgiving dinner which always includes Grandmother’s famous cranberry bread made with a very secret recipe.

Grandmother invites the dashing Mr. Horace while Maggie invites Mr. Whiskers. Grandmother cannot stand Mr. Whiskers and is sure he is out to steal her recipe. The story takes some interesting twists and ends up demonstrating that looks can be deceiving.

Cranberry Thanksgiving is a colorful book with fun illustrations and interesting characters. Perhaps most fun is the inclusion of Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Bread recipe at the end of the book. Making this recipe each year for Thanksgiving often becomes a beloved tradition for those who meet Maggie, Grandmother, Mr. Horace and Mr. Whiskers.

Recipe
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
3/4 cup orange juice
1 1/2 fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped
1 1/2 cups light raisins

Mix the dry ingredients.
Add butter and blend as for pie pastry.

.chop cranberries in food processer
.add orange peel and juice
.add egg
whirl to blend
Add wet mixture to flour mixture and stir until blended adding the raisins.

Spoon into a greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.

Bake at 350o for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan.

If you choose, you may substitute cranberries for the raisins to have an all cranberry bread (that is what I did). Also a great extra is to sprinkle sugar on top of the loaf before baking. This adds a shiny, crusty surface to this loaf.