Texas Cranberry Jalapeno Bread

[claire797]

Just made a half batch of this yesterday and wanted to share. This is a Texas-style recipe that was recently published in the Texas Electric Coop magazine with other prize winners. It sounds crazy, but it's very good. First you taste a little heat, then you taste the sweetness from the cranberries. My family has been raving about it and I am finding it oddly addictive.

This makes a huge batch. You may want to halve it.

Texas Cranberry/Jalapeno Bread

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup pecans, chopped (I toast mine first)
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons mild salsa
2 tablespoons jalapeno jelly (increase for more "heat")
8 tablespoons butter (1 stick -- melted and cooled)
1 bag (12 ounces) cranberries, coarsely chopped or 1 6 oz bag Craisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease 2 large loaf pans or 6 small loaf pans. Mix dry ingredients, including nuts, in a large bowl. Combine wet ingredients and cranberries in a medium bowl. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into the well and fold only until dry ingredients are moist. Mixture will be stiff. Do not over stir. Spread into pans and bake 70 minutes for large loaf pans or 30-35 minutes for small loaf pans. Reduce baking time 5-10 minutes for dark pans. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans. Cool completely before wrapping and freezing. Yield: 2 loaves.

[ebobbitt]

Oh my! I think this sounds wonderful. I'm going to put the ingredients I don't have on my grocery list so I can make this tomorrow. Thanks for posting.

[claire797]

Originally posted by ebobbitt
Oh my! I think this sounds wonderful. I'm going to put the ingredients I don't have on my grocery list so I can make this tomorrow. Thanks for posting.

Can't wait to hear what you think of it, Elizabeth. It has quite a unique taste.

[LonghornGal]

Hey there Claire -

Thanks for the recipe - this will be great for Christmas dinner. 1 question - do you melt the butter and add it to the liquids?

TY!
--Kristin

[claire797]

Originally posted by LonghornGal
Hey there Claire -

Thanks for the recipe - this will be great for Christmas dinner. 1 question - do you melt the butter and add it to the liquids?

TY!
--Kristin

Hi Kristin!

Yes, you do melt the butter. What I did was use two bowls, a big bowl and a medium bowl. I put the butter in the medium bowl and melted it in the microwave. As it cooled (I always let melted butter cool before adding it to batters), I mixed the dry ingredients in the big bowl -- flour through pecans. After the butter had cooled slightly, I mixed the wet ingredients in the medium bowl (butter, eggs, and everything below the eggs including cranberries). I made a well in the dry ingredients then poured the wet ingredients in the well and stirred only until combined. It's important not to overbeat.

Hope this helps! There are a few more recipes on the site if you're interested. There's also a good article about Texas foods in the December issue.

http://www.texascooppower.com/tcp/1103contest.html

http://www.texascooppower.com/tcp/1203food.html

[Terrytx]

I think I will also add this to Christmas dinner. Thanks for posting

[donnamp14]

I have a question. Is it just me, or does it seem like Texas is just chock full of fabulous cooks? DS lived in Houston for a while and his girlfriend lives up here now. This young woman has moved DS from carnivore who hated garlic and spicy foods to a guy who tries everything and actually cooks new foods! And of course, I am making this bread tomorrow morning! Thanks for the recipe!

[Beth]

Originally posted by donnamp14
I have a question. Is it just me, or does it seem like Texas is just chock full of fabulous cooks?

I'd like to say "Of course!" But it may just be that Texas is big enough for a lot of everything. I have a sister and a SIL who I don't think cook at all -- or very little.

[Beth]

Oops.

[Terrytx]

I couldn't wait until Christmas They are in the oven right now and smelling great

[britneyelise]

I dont have jalepeno jelly, but I do have the generic "Hot Pepper Jelly" do you think that it will taste as good or nearly so with this? Thanks,
Shannon

[LonghornGal]

Originally posted by donnamp14
I have a question. Is it just me, or does it seem like Texas is just chock full of fabulous cooks?

I think Claire spurred a run on Jalapeno Jelly and cranberries at my HEB. Every cook in Texas is making these - it took me 5 minutes of searching to find the last lonely little jar of Jalapeno Jelly hiding there. I was worried that me and my wallet would have to go face the temptation of Central Market, but luckily for me, not!

Did y'all use dried or frozen crans? We are "plumb out" of fresh but I have both frozen and dried. I think I'll use the frozen ones to make room in the freezer unless you rave about it with Craisins. There were 5 or 6 of us harrassing the poor produce man about the lack of fresh crans.

Thanks for the links Claire. Those other quickbreads sound good - I want to try the cherry one!

--Kristin

[claire797]

Britneyelise,
You could try using hot pepper jelly. Your bread would be a little different, but as long as the hot pepper jelly has some heat to it you should get the same spicy/sweet effect.

Kristin,
I used Craisins because my stepmother, who's been making this recipe like gangbusters, uses Craisins. I think it would be really good with fresh or frozen though. But the craisins work fine.

Terry, did you try yours yet? One thing I noticed about mine is that it doesn't rise very high. It's a moist loaf, but fairly dense.

[LonghornGal]

Thanks Claire. I am thinking of baking my "loaves" in my snowman and christmas tree shaped wilton mini-cake pans. Good to know that they don't poof too much during baking.

Yippee for the holiday!

[MKSquared]

Shannon - call me. I'll give you a jar of my homemade stuff if you get in touch with me.

I can't wait to try this out - I might include a loaf of it with some of my jellies! Thanks!

[Terrytx]

I used homemade jalapeno jelly and fresh cranberries. Mine rose pretty high then flattened out some as they cooled-yes-fairly dense but delicious!! I used 2 tbl jalapeno jelly liked the recipe called for, but I think I will use more or add a jalapeno to give it a little more heat. This will become a Christmas tradition at our house.

[claire797]

Originally posted by Terrytx
I used homemade jalapeno jelly and fresh cranberries. Mine rose pretty high then flattened out some as they cooled-yes-fairly dense but delicious!! I used 2 tbl jalapeno jelly liked the recipe called for, but I think I will use more or add a jalapeno to give it a little more heat. This will become a Christmas tradition at our house.

Glad you liked it! I made a batch yesterday and omitted the salsa completely but doubled the jalapeno jelly. It tasted great and had a little more heat.

[Terrytx]

I forgot about the salsa, maybe instead of adding more jelly I will buy a hotter salsa to use. We will be having this around alot til I get it just right.

[ebobbitt]

I had to reschedule the baking of this until tonight since I forgot the oranges (for orange juice) when I went to the grocery store yesterday. I have a question: Do you eat the bread "naked" or put something on it?

[Terrytx]

I ate it "naked", but I bet it would be good toasted with a little butter or cream cheese.

[Wendy w]

Wow, this looks interesting! Thanks! I have a jar of jalapeno jelly waiting for the brie kisses that I haven't gotten around to making yet.

[britneyelise]

These are in the oven right now, thanks to the super fabulous MaryKate who dropped off some wonderful jalepeno jelly (and cranberry jalepeno jelly and reindeer cookies and cute homemade magnets!). I used the fresh cranberries option and forgot about adding the pecans to the batter so I sprinkled them on top! Can't wait to give it a try.

Shannon

[ebobbitt]

This is really good! I have only allowed myself one piece since my WW weigh-in is today at lunch. I brought one loaf to the office to share with my co-workers but the other I left at home.

[britneyelise]

This recipe is a winner! The flavor is so unusual that my half-hearted descriptions are not going to do it justice.

I used fresh cranberries and sprinkled the pecans on the top.
I also used homemade jalapeno jelly from MaryKate (MKSquared).

The flavor is like a perfume in a way with top, middle, and bottom notes.

At the top is the sweetness of the bread, but not overly so. There is a hint of vanilla in the first bite.
Then you get the tartness of the cranberries to contrast with the sweetness. I like the texture of the fresh cranberries, but I also bought enough ingredients to make another set of loaves with craisins.
After the sweet tart flavor, there is the slow rise of the savory flavors. The cumin creeps up on you with a slight hint of heat from the jelly (I left out the salsa). When the flavors combine it is phenomenal. I was unsure as to if I would like this, but it is going on a permanant list of favorites. Thanks for posting!

Shannon

[MKSquared]

Shannon was awesome enough to deliver me a loaf at work, and I give it a huge thumbs up! Even my non-adventurous coworkers were convinced to give it a shot, and once they took the first bite, they were hooked. It's not overly hot - it's more like a hint of savory mixed in with tart and sweet. (How funny, Shannon, I didn't know you'd left out the salsa, and I was convinced I could taste it!)

Thanks for posting!

[McSix]

I may have a crisis on my hands. My loaves are in the oven, but I had multiplie problems in recipe following (too many distractions the day before Christmas Eve). Anyhow, the worst was suddenly remembering the two cups of sugar after everything else was mixed! I mixed it in anyway (my husband would have killed me if I didn't try after he cut up all those cranberries--he insists on doing them one at a time). The recipe says "don't overmix" .......... We'll see what happens!

[claire797]

Originally posted by McSix
I may have a crisis on my hands. My loaves are in the oven, but I had multiplie problems in recipe following (too many distractions the day before Christmas Eve). Anyhow, the worst was suddenly remembering the two cups of sugar after everything else was mixed! I mixed it in anyway (my husband would have killed me if I didn't try after he cut up all those cranberries--he insists on doing them one at a time). The recipe says "don't overmix" .......... We'll see what happens!

I'm sure it will be fine . Let us know what happens.

[McSix]

The bread did come out very well. I think the texture may have been a bit off after reading the other posts, but it tasted great. We have distributed it around the neighborhood. I'll post any comments. Thanks for something truly different, Claire!

[Vicanddi]

I have another spicy/sweet bread recipe to share. I found it in Family Circle and plan on trying it, maybe for next year though. I think it would make a great gfift! Thanks, Anna, for opening my eyes to these types of treats!


* Exported from MasterCook *

Spicy Apple Cheddar Bread

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 16 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Bread

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
2 cups flour, all-purpose
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup unsalted butter -- at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups Granny Smith apples -- peeled, cored, and shredded, about 2 small
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese -- shredded
3/4 cup walnuts -- chopped

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, salt, and cayenne.

In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, beat for 1 minute. On
low speed, beat in flour mixture alternating with milk; beat just until combined. Stir in apple; fold in cheese and walnuts.

Spoon into a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Bake for 60-70 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack, let bread cool in pan about 10 minutes. Turn bread out onto rack and let cool. Store bread well wrapped at cool temperature for up to 2 days.

Description:
"Great as a gift"
Source:
"Family Circle December 2003"
Yield:
"16 slices"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 220 Calories; 12g Fat (49.3% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 23g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 47mg Cholesterol; 210mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1 Grain(Starch); 1/2 Lean Meat; 0 Fruit; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 2 Fat; 1/2 Other Carbohydrates.

NOTES : For a gift: Purchase decorative loaf pan and bake bread in new pan. Unmold bread and clean pan. Place cooled bread back in pna. Wrap in decorative paper or cellophane. Include appropriate kitchen utensils, such as small box grater, apple corer and recipe.

Nutr. Assoc. : 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

[Wendy w]

Just want to say that I had a baking day today to practice possible recipes for this summer's fair. I then share w/coworkers and get their feedback. The booklet comes out next month and you have to turn in what areas you want to enter by May.

Anyway...I made this today and it is really good and unique. I could not find regular jalapeno jelly so I used a really good pineapple jalapeno jelly that Lisa Numbers gave me awhile back. This is excellent! Thanks for sharing.