Orange Cranberry Bread
This easy, lightened up Orange Cranberry Bread is a perfect winter treat that’s great for breakfast or a snack. If you’re looking to do some delicious holiday baking, but a little lighter on calories, fat, and sugar, this recipe is for you! I love orange and cranberry together, it’s such a tasty classic flavor combination. The bread is the perfect amount of sweet without being overly so, and the tart cranberries give it pops of contrast. You’ll love how quick and easy this is to put together. It’s a perfect recipe for kids to help with too! My daughter declared this the “best bread ever,” but I will admit that she says that about any and every fruity quick bread recipe.
This bread would make a great hostess gift or fun surprise to give to friends and neighbors this holiday season. Just make sure to make a loaf for yourself as well! Each slice of this delicious Orange Cranberry Bread is just 117 calories or 4 WW Points (or 5 points if following the diabetic Weight Watchers plan). To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app, click here!
Recipe Notes
- Oranges: You should be able to get the juice and zest you need for this recipe from one medium-large orange! I use a wooden citrus reamer like this one (affiliate link) to juice the oranges and it works great every time.
- Cranberries: Use fresh cranberries! You can just cut them in half and toss them in! I like to reserve some to sprinkle across the top of the bread to make it extra pretty, but if you forget and throw them all in that will work just as well! If you’d like to be able to make this bread year-round, it’s a good idea to buy bags of cranberries in November and December when they’re easy to find in grocery stores and freeze them for future use.
- Baking Powder: You’re going to want to use aluminum-free baking powder for this. Oranges and cranberries are acidic and can react with the aluminum that’s in some brands of baking powder to make blue spots in your bread. These spots are harmless and just a color change from the pH reaction, but to avoid them you can just make sure the baking powder brand you buy is aluminum-free!
- Alternative Sweeteners: I haven’t personally tried making this using a zero-calorie sweetener in place of sugar, but I feel confident that it would work out just fine. Just make sure the sweetener you’re using has a 1:1 substitution ratio with sugar so that the sweetness level isn’t off.
- Add-Ins: I think walnuts or pecans would be tasty in this if you’d like to add nuts! Keep in mind that either of these add-ins will of course affect the nutrition information/WW points listed if you’re tracking either.
Storage Tips:
You can store this Orange Cranberry Bread by placing it on a paper towel in an airtight container and leaving it on the counter for 4-5 days, or by putting the container in the refrigerator.
To Freeze:
I love how easily this Orange Cranberry Bread comes together, and it’s great to bake once and eat for a few days straight! You can also freeze it by just wrapping the loaf or individual slices in plastic wrap once they’re completely cool and putting them in a freezer bag. You can either defrost them to room temp or heat them up in the microwave before eating.
Want more easy, tasty, lightened up baked goods?
Looking for more tasty varieties of lightened up muffin and quick bread recipes? Check out my Carrot Cake Bread, Apple Bread, Blueberry Bread, Banana Zucchini Muffins, Pineapple Upside Down Baked Oatmeal Singles, Morning Glory Muffins, Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins, Carrot Muffins, Chocolate Raspberry Muffins, Apple Cinnamon Muffins, Banana Blueberry Muffins, Pumpkin Zucchini Muffins, and more in the Muffins section of my recipe index!
Orange Cranberry Bread
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ¼ cup orange juice
- 1 ½ teaspoon orange zest, (about the amount from one orange)
- 4 tablespoons light butter, melted (I use Land O’Lakes light butter spread with canola oil in the tub)
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ cup halved fresh cranberries, divided
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Mist a 9” x 5” loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the egg, applesauce, sugar, orange juice and orange zest and stir together until well combined. Add the melted butter and stir together.
- In a separate mixing bowl, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and whisk until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir together until just combined into a batter. Stir a cup of the halved cranberries into the batter until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and top with the remaining ¼ cup of cranberries. Bake for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Transfer the bread in the loaf pan to a wire cooling rack and cool in the pan for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, invert the pan to release the bread onto the cooling rack and then flip it over so that it’s right side up. Allow the bread to rest directly on the rack until cool. Once the bread is cool, slice the loaf into 12 (3/4” thick) slices.
Notes
117 calories, 22 g carbs, 8 g sugars, 3 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 2 g protein, 1 g fiber, 183 mg sodium (from myfitnesspal.com) Weight Watchers Points Plus:
3 per (1 slice) serving (P+ calculated using a PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition information)
Could I use dehydrated cranberries instead of fresh ones?
I would like to add walnuts but eliminate the orange juice. What should I add in place of the orange juice?
This is a really good quick bread recipe! Moist and flavorful, not too sweet. A keeper.
Your recipes just keep getting better and better!