If you like a nutty bread, add ¼ to ½ cup walnut or pecan pieces.
#Mr children books zip#
Dried berries are fine if you’d prefer a sweeter bread but I really relish the tart zip of the fresh berries. The secret to this bread is the fresh cranberries, even though it will take you about 10 minutes to chop the berries by hand. Stir until mixture is just moistened then fold in 1 cup raisins or currants and 2 cups chopped fresh cranberries (about an 8-ounce bag of whole cranberries). Add 1 beaten egg, 1 tablespoon grated orange peel and ¾ cup orange juice.
Cut in ¼ cup butter until mixture is crumbly. Sift together 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1½ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda and ½ teaspoon each cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. So, without further ado, here is Grandma’s legendary recipe for cranberry bread, with a few of my own improvements. One day I might have grandchildren to read to but in the meantime, a few books - including “Cranberry Thanksgiving” - still sit on my shelf to remind me that some things are never outgrown, like the pleasures of a good story or the taste of a beloved family recipe. My own daughter is now in college and she’s beyond the age of bedtime stories, so I recently boxed up all the children’s books gathering dust in her room, including all my old book-a-month books. I don’t know if it was actually any good but I loved it and I made it every year until I left for college. When I pulled the loaf from the oven and presented it to our guests, I beamed with the joy of my accomplishment and they all gamely ate a slice. Even at that age, I was futzing with the recipe and adding embellishments to make it truly my own. My tradition would be cranberry bread for guests to nibble on while waiting for dinner (never mind that they were trying not to spoil their appetites).Īlthough it probably irritated the hot and harried women in the kitchen, they granted me counter space and time in the oven to bake my bread. My grandmother Honor made cranberry Jell-O salad with pineapple cream cheese dressing and my mother made homemade cornbread stuffing with fragrant sage. My grandmother Esther brought candied sweet potatoes and apple, pecan and pumpkin pies. Finally, I could contribute more to the Thanksgiving meal than just putting olives on my fingers! I’d take my place with our family’s matriarchs, each of whom had Thanksgiving specialties. It seemed easy enough that even a kid could make it and I was eager to try. The best thing about the book was that the authors included a recipe for cranberry bread. The moral of the story is that just because someone smells fishy doesn’t mean he’s a bad catch and all’s well that ends with pie. The illustration on the last page shows Grandma flirtatiously taking the blushing Mr. Whiskers is redeemed.Įverything ends with pumpkin pie and even the disgraced Mr.
Horace in the act of filching the recipe from behind a loose brick in the fireplace.
Whiskers is probably out to steal her secret recipe. Grandma doesn’t care for his bushy face and untidy appearance and believes that Mr. Her granddaughter, meanwhile, invites the smelly, clam-digging Mr. Horace, a charming, well-groomed gentleman from town whom she invites to Thanksgiving dinner at her house. The grandmother is famous for her delicious cranberry bread but she refuses to divulge the recipe until she meets Mr. When I was about 10, I received “Cranberry Thanksgiving,” about a girl and her grandmother who live next to a cranberry bog on the New England coast. When I was in first or second grade, my mother subscribed to a children’s book-a-month club, so every month for several years I got a new book in the mail.