Orange-glazed Cranberry bread has a moist and tender crumb and is loaded with juicy cranberries. It has the perfect balance of sweet and tangy and just like our famous Banana Bread, this loaf stays moist for a few days (in case you needed a homemade Christmas gift idea).
This is a copycat version of my favorite bakery’s cranberry loaf and this one turned out even better – more cranberries and the orange glaze makes it truly special. You’ll love every bite.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.
We love cranberry recipes during the holidays like Sugared Cranberries, Cranberry Bundt Cake, and of course this Cranberry Bread recipe. If you love tangy and juicy cranberries, this recipe is a must-try!
Cranberry Bread Video Tutorial
If you enjoyed this video for Cranberry Bread, please subscribe to our Youtube Channel (P.S. Click the BELL icon so you can be the first to know when we post a new video). Thank you for subscribing!
Ingredients for Cranberry Orange Bread
- Flour – use all-purpose to give the bread structure
- Baking powder – leavening to make the loaf rise
- Salt – balances the sweetness
- Milk – best at room temperature
- Orange zest and juice – be sure to zest the orange before juicing it. Reserve a teaspoon of zest for the glaze.
- Butter – Adds moisture to the loaf. Use unsalted butter softened at room temperature.
- Sugar – to balance the tanginess of the cranberries
- Eggs – give the bread a moist, tender crumb
- Cranberries – rinsed and dried then tossed in 1/2 Tbsp of flour to keep them from sinking in the batter (see substitution options in common questions section)
How to Make Cranberry Bread
- Whisk dry ingredients – whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
- Combine wet ingredients – in a measuring cup, stir together milk, orange juice and zest.
- Cream butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl then beat in eggs until well combined.
- Combine batter – Add flour mixture in 2 additions, alternating with the milk mixture, mixing just until combined.
- Flour cranberries – rinse and dry cranberries then toss them with 1/2 Tbsp flour to coat. Fold in cranberries just until incorporated. Spread batter into buttered and floured 8.5×4.5 bread pan.
- Bake the bread for 45-50 minutes until golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
Pro Tip: Tossing cranberries in a little flour coats them lightly and prevents them from sinking to the bottom of the loaf as it bakes. This ensures cranberries are evenly disbursed in the finished loaf.
The Best Glaze for Cranberry Bread
Orange and cranberry are complimentarily flavored just like peanut butter and jelly. Topping the cranberry bread with orange juice and the orange zest-infused glaze makes this bread irresistible. I’m not sure if it’s breakfast or dessert but I’ve served it both ways. All you need for this easy 3-ingredient glaze is:
- Powdered sugar – I spoon it into the cup and level the top for a consistent measure.
- Orange juice – Freshly squeezed is best and don’t worry about straining. A little pulp won’t hurt the bread.
- Orange zest – do not skip the zest. It adds deep orange floral notes to the glaze.
Common Questions
Yes, you can use frozen cranberries in the same quantity and add them frozen (do not thaw). You may need to bake just a few minutes longer or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
You can substitute with 2/3 cup dried cranberries and reduce the sugar in the recipe to 2/3 cup since dried cranberries aren’t as tart. The dried cranberries will be juicer if you soak them in very warm water for 10 minutes then drain and pat dry before using.
You can make this a cranberry nut bread by folding in 1/2 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans when adding the cranberries to the batter.
This sweet bread is total comfort food. All you need is a mug of tea or coffee to go with a thick, fresh slice of cranberry bread.
Make-Ahead
- Room Temperature – wrap cranberry bread loosely in plastic wrap or store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
- Refrigerate – you can cover and store the loaf in the refrigerator for up to a week.
- Freezing – cool the loaf completely to room temperature then place in a freezer-safe zip bag, removing any excess air. Freeze up to three months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before serving.
Pro Tip: Cranberries are only available for a season in grocery stores so buy extra and store them in the freezer so you can keep enjoying this cranberry bread year-round.
More Cranberry Recipes
These are our best cranberry recipes using both fresh and dried cranberries.
- Cranberry Sauce
- Sparkling Cranberry Pineapple Punch
- Cranberry Orange Scones
- Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Cranberries
- Cranberry Apple Danish
Cranberry Bread with Orange Glaze
Ingredients
Cranberry Bread Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup milk, room temperature
- Zest of 1 large orange, divided
- 1/4 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed
- 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed and patted dry
- 1/2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
Orange Glaze Ingredients:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice, or to reach desired consistency
- 1 tsp orange zest, reserved from the orange above
Instructions
How to Make Cranberry Orange Bread:
- Prep: Preheat oven to 350˚F. Butter a 6 cup (8 1/2 by 4 1/2 bread loaf pan)* then dust with flour, tapping out the excess flour.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together: flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a measuring cup, combine together milk, zest of 1 orange (Reserve 1 tsp zest for the glaze), and orange juice. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and granulated sugar on medium/high speed (2-3 minutes on high speed). It won’t be smooth, just combined. Beat in 2 large eggs, mixing until well incorporated.
- Add flour mixture in 2 parts, alternating with the milk mixture and mixing on medium/low speed just until incorporated with each addition. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed.
- Toss cranberries with 1/2 Tbsp flour then fold them into the batter just until incorporated. Spread the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 45-50 min at 350˚F until golden on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 10-15 minutes then run a cake release tool or knife around the edges and transfer the loaf to a wire rack to cool completely before glazing.
To Make the Glaze:
- In a separate bowl, stir together powdered sugar, orange juice and reserved teaspoon of zest. Stir until smooth. It should have a drizzling consistency. Add more orange juice to thin it out or powdered sugar to make it thicker.
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
I loved your orange cranberry bread so much. Do you have a recipe for cranberry orange muffins. I have jumbo muffin pan’s , so what temperature and time would I use. A Big Thank You in advance.
Hi Robyn! I do not, but likely you can use this recipe. Some of my readers have used this recipe to make standard size muffins or mini loafs. I have not tested it myself to know the timing. Temperature can likely stay the same but they’ll bake faster, so watch them in the oven.
I made this last year and it was so good I would up eating it all myself! I hope the one in the oven right now makes it to my son’s on Christmas! I hope it freezes well til then…
Hi Debbie, I hope your son will love it too! Thank you for this review.
This was amazing! Made it today in mini loaves for gifts. Thank you!
That’s a great idea and thank you for this great review!
Absolutely delicious. I made the mistake of making the glaze too thin and putting it on while the cake was still warm. It didn’t look pretty but it still tasted great. And the sugared cranberries added a pretty effect and were surprisingly delicious! Another winner, Natasha!
Hi Victoria! Thank you so much for sharing your feedback.
I made it tonight and it was delicious! Great texture and the orange flavor was nice and strong. My only complaint was that the bites with a cranberry were quite sour. Is there any way I can make my fresh cranberries less sour? They were just organic, bagged from the supermarket.
I’m so glad you loved it, Lorraine. Thank you for this review!
I too was wondering about that. Pretty sour in some bites but otherwise perfect!
Years ago I had a recipe for Cranberry Orange Bread that I loved – and I think it got tossed out with a bunch of newspapers. I think it was more complicated than yours, but I like yours better! It was simple and moist and beautiful and the glaze really set it off. Perfect texture and surpriingly light. Glad I bought the big bag of fresh cranberries because I’m going to make it again this week!
Thank you so much for sharing that wonderful review with me, Jill! I’m so happy you loved this Cranberry Bread!
I’m going to make this bread to give as gifts for Christmas. I’ll be freezing the loaves before I give them. My question is should I freeze them with the glaze or without?
Hi Sharon! You can freeze them with or without the glaze. If you freeze them without, then thaw the loafs and add the glaze after thawing.
Can I use this recipe to make mini loaves just dividing the batter?
Hi Erin! That would work fine, but watch them
in the oven because they will bake faster.
I cannot rave enough about this recipe. Served it today to a crowd during brunch. Everyone asked for the recipe. I followed the ingredients and steps as written. It is a keeper for sure.
Great to hear that it was a huge hit! Thanks so much for sharing that with us.
Hi Natasha, I followed this recipe exactly but when it came time to slicing, everything was crumbling. What did I do wrong? I did let it cool for about 15 minutes out of the pan?
Hi Marisa. Did you make any substitutions? It’s possible that it needed to cool longer. I would also verify that all the ingredients were measured correctly.
One of the best things I’ve ever eaten!!!! This tastes amazing and simple to make. I used dried cranberries instead since that’s my preference and followed the recommendation for adjustments to the recipe for that. I will say that I didn’t have that size loaf plan…thought it was a bit of an odd size so I used the one I had on hand which was a little bigger and the loaf was smaller than what I thought aside from the loaf pan being an inch or so smaller but that does not take away from how amazing this came out!
I’m so glad to hear that, Melissa! Thank you for the feedback.
Made this last night. It is absolutely delicious! I didn’t have another orange so I used some heavy cream in place of orange juice to make the glaze and it was still very good and really makes the cranberry loaf. Thanks for such a delicious recipe. Have made other orange cranberry breads and yours is the best by far!
You’re very welcome, Vanessa!
Greetings from the UK. Thank you for the fabulous recipe 👏👏👏 I appreciate the metric conversion option. How much is 6 tablespoons butter in grams? The conversion is missing in the recipe. Also, would it work swopping butter for a neutral oil instead? To lower the saturated fat in nutritional value. Your thoughts appreciated in advance… thanks
Hi Nina, you’re welcome. Glad that was helpful! This ingredient weight chart can be helpful. Also, I haven’t tried that substitution yet but one of readers used canola oil and it worked for them.
This recipe is perfection 😋
I followed it exactly! Well, except I grabbed a big spoonful of it out of the pan as soon as I took it out of the oven, I had waited long enough 😂. It’s light, tender, moist, tangy yumminess! Thank you Natasha, I’m looking forward to trying more of your recipes.
You’re welcome, Johanna!
Delicious!
I want to do mini loaves. What do you suggest for cook time and temp?
Hi Elisa! I haven’t tested this in different sizes to provide the exact instructions. The temperature should be the same, but they will bake faster so you’ll have to watch them in the oven.
I followed recipe exactly and it didn’t rise and isn’t baking correctly. Not sure what is going on, but I’m very disappointed! I used flour on the cranberries, but the still have floated to the top. They were frozen, but I thought that the recipe stated that was okay.
Hi Kim! Make sure that your leaving agent is fresh and not expired. Also, the oven needs to be fully preheated before you start baking or is will effect the rise and how it bakes. I highly encourage the use of an Internal oven thermometer (Amazon affiliate link) to ensure your oven is heating correctly. This recipe was written for a conventional oven on regular bake mode. If you have a convection oven, it would require some modifications. I hope that helps.
Hi Kim! I am wondering what your batter looked like before you put it in the oven. I also used frozen cranberries though I thawed them out. The batter is VERY thick. Quick breads don’t really rise very much, just a little domed. I just pulled mine out of the oven – it looks great, no floating cranberries.
Can I use dried cranberries instead of fresh cranberries for this recipe?
Hi Zarin, we address this in the recipe, please see the “Can I Substitute Dried Cranberries?” section. I hope you love this recipe.
This recipe is excellent. I hadn’t baked CB bread in a while. This is now my go to recipe. I made a couple of modifications: used 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup almond flour. Also added 3/4 cup chopped walnuts. I prepped 2 loaf pans (1 large and 1 small) with canola oil and lined with parchment paper. For the glaze, I cut the ingredients in half and I sifted the powered sugar before adding. My biggest challenge was calling it quits after eating two pieces. Freeze the small loaf or give to a friend.
I’m so happy you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that with us, Kathy!
This is cranberry orange cake not bread. I should have realized that when the recipe called to cream the butter and sugar. This is how you make a cake, not bread. It is totally different than Cranberry Orange Bread.
I hope you like our take on this recipe, Murline and try it soon! Happy Holidays!
This is a quick bread, which is a bread made without yeast or sour dough starter, i.e., banana bread, zucchini bread, etc.
This is whats called a QUICK BREAD. The same as banana bread, zucchini bread Pumpkin bread, etc etc etc ..
Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
This cranberry bread is moist and delicious! I didn’t even bother making the glaze since it’s very tasteful without
Thanks for sharing this with us, glad you loved this recipe even without the glaze