Orange Cranberry Bread with Chocolate

Although, I’m not a vegan, I have been an ovo-lacto vegetarian for 18 years. Lately, we have been cutting back on dairy and eggs. I’ve experimented with using soy milk in place of cow’s milk since we don’t have it in the house anymore. I’ve found that it actually works better in quick breads. It seems to add a bit of tanginess, not unlike buttermilk.

I decided to try making a complete vegan bread using a recipe that was already close. It called for buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt. Substituting soy milk and soy yogurt was easy. I also am trying egg substitute and this recipe only had one egg, so I thought it would be a good test. As an added bonus, I tried adding a bit of chopped vegan dark chocolate. Dave thought it would be good in orange bread, and boy was he right!

This bread was delicious, both warm and cold. I’ve made this bread using dairy and eggs and now I’ve made the vegan version. I have to admit, the vegan version is better. It’s clean and bright with the orange contrasting nicely with the chocolate and the tang of the cranberry adding the extra zing.

Vegan Orange Cranberry Bread with Chocolate

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 orange (zest and juice)
• 1/4 cup of vanilla soy yogurt
• 1/2 cup of vanilla soy milk
• 1 serving Ener-G egg substitute
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup of fresh cranberries, roughly chopped
• 2-3 ounces of vegan dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 350º F.

1. Using a Microplane zester, zest the orange making sure not to go into the white pith. Juice the orange and place the zest in the juice to bloom.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the orange juice and zest, yogurt, soymilk, egg substitute and vegetable oil.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined. Do not overmix.
5. Fold in the cranberries and chocolate.
6. Pour the batter into a greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
7. Bake the bread for 55 – 65 minutes until a tester inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean and the bread starts to pull away from the edges of the pan.
8. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 15 minutes and then run out of the pan to finish cooling.

Oxo Food Scale

In baking, it is often recommended that you measure your dry ingredients with a scale instead of using measuring cups. I really like this method. Not only is it more accurate, but it is faster. I can keep adding ingredients and zero out the scale between each addition. I also have less to clean up, which is always a plus.

I have three digital scales right now. Two of them are Salter scales and the third is a newer one from Oxo. The Oxo is my favorite. I rarely use the others anymore and should sell them or find them a new home. The Oxo has a nice flat profile making storage easy. It has a large display that lights up in low light settings. You can switch between ounces and grams with a button on the front and the display pulls out if you have a large bowl or plate on the platform. It’s easy to clean because the top plate comes off.

One problem with weighing ingredients is that there are different opinions on the weight of dry ingredients. King Arthur Flour recipes use 4.25 oz for a cup of all-purpose flour. Cook’s Illustrated uses 5 oz for a cup of all-purpose flour. That’s a pretty big difference. In general, I use the 5 oz measure for most recipes and only use the 4.25 oz when I’m making a King Arthur recipe, which are quite delicious by the way.

When I bought my first Salter scale it came with a conversion chart. It seems to work well for most dry ingredients.

Baking Conversion Chart