Orange-Chip Cranberry Bread

The week after Thanksgiving, always the quiet week, the cleaning-up week, the week when the house settles back into its ordinary dimensions after being stretched by company and cooking and the full presence of everyone you love. I cleaned the kitchen top to bottom on Friday. The refrigerator, the stovetop, the oven—which needs cleaning after a week of serious cooking and gets it, because Bernice's kitchen was never dirty and mine won't be either—and the counters, every surface, and when I was done the kitchen smelled like clean and possibility and I stood in it and thought: I have fed everyone who matters to me this week. That is a very good week.

Travis called to say thank you again—he texted Destiny, who told me, which is the young-people version of the same communication. He has also apparently been talking about the mac and cheese to his colleagues at the fire station, which Destiny mentioned with the expression of a woman who is simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. I will make mac and cheese for the fire station at some point. This is now inevitable. When someone talks about your food that way, you eventually have to feed the audience.

December is here. Advent begins Sunday. I will turn fifty years old on Christmas Day, which is a number I have been approaching with a mixture of what I can only call pragmatic awe—fifty years is a long life, or the half of one, or something in between, and it has contained more than I anticipated when I was born into it on Christmas Day 1969. More grief than I expected. More love than I could have imagined. More cooking than any single kitchen should be asked to produce. More Marcus than I got, and less Marcus than I needed, and the need and the got are both still present, both still true, both still mine.

I am starting the Advent baking. The fruitcake is in. The spice cake will go in next week. The pound cake for Christmas is still weeks away. The kitchen smells like December, which means it smells like childhood and Bernice and every Christmas that has been or will be. The fifty years are in there. All of them.

The fruitcake is already in, doing its slow, patient work in the back of the refrigerator the way Bernice’s always did, and now the kitchen needs something faster — something that fills the house with orange and spice on a cold December afternoon while the rest of the Advent baking lines up behind it. This Orange-Chip Cranberry Bread is exactly that: tart, bright, a little bit celebratory, the kind of loaf you can slice and leave on the counter for anyone who stops by, which in December is everyone. Fifty years of Decembers, and the ones I remember best all smelled something like this.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 60 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min | Servings: 12 slices

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan and lightly dust with flour, or line with parchment paper.
Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until evenly mixed.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, stir together the orange juice, orange zest, melted butter, and beaten egg.
Bring it together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined — do not overmix; a few streaks of flour are fine at this stage.
Fold in the good stuff. Gently fold in the chopped cranberries, chocolate chips, and nuts if using, distributing them evenly throughout the batter.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and spread evenly. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is golden brown.
Cool before slicing. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely before slicing — at least 1 hour. The flavor deepens as it cools.

Nutrition (per serving)

Orange-Chip Cranberry Bread — The Loaf That Smells Like December