Orange Cranberry Pumpkin Quick Bread

Preheat oven to 350°F / 177°C.

If using raw pumpkin, halve it and remove seeds. Place in a roasting dish pulp side down and roast for about 1 hour. Let it cool thoroughly. Remove meat and measure about 2 cups.

In a medium sized bowl mix flour with baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg. ginger and cloves. Set aside.

Quarter orange and remove seeds. Place pieces in a food processor and pulse a few times. The rind pieces should not be too large, but I like some of them about pea size or slightly larger.

Lightly beat eggs in a mixing bowl, by hand or with an electric mixer. Add pumpkin and orange and combine. Incorporate sugar into wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients about 1 cup at a time, just until mixed.

Process cranberries in a food processor, again, leave a few of the pieces pea sized or so. Place in a bowl. Process nuts in the food processor. Add nuts to cranberries in the bowl and toss together with the tablespoon of flour. This helps to stop the fruit from floating to the top of the batter.

Incorporate cranberries and nuts into the batter by hand.

Spray loaf pans with non-stick spray. Recipe makes 7 mini loaves, so bake in batches if needed. Fill loaf pans 2/3 full.

Bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour, depending on the size of the loaves, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven. Allow loaves to cool on a cooling rack in the pans for at least 1 hour. Then slide a knife down the edges to loosen. If they are cool enough, they literally fall right out when turned upside down. Let loaves cool fully on rack.

These freeze very well. After they are fully cool, wrap in plastic wrap and then in aluminum foil.

Yields 7 mini loaves.