Pumpkin Cranberrry Bread {A Tuesdays with Dorie Post}

Initially I was skeptical about this first choice for October's Tuesdays with Dorie recipies.  So much so, in fact, that I almost didn't even bother trying it.  I mean, really, how many pumpkin bread recipes do we need?  The blogosphere is chock full of them and if you took a quick look at Pinterest, you'd find pumpkin bread all over the place.  Admittedly, I hadn't actually looked at the recipe yet.  But boy am I glad I did, because if I hadn't, I would have missed out on one beauty of a bread.  A yeast bread, not a quick bread as I had assumed.  As an added bonus, it's colorful and jam-packed with fall spices and little nuggets of bright flavors.   Now that I can get excited about.

The only problem that I had with this tasty little bread was the waiting time.  I just don't have the patience to wait for an overnight rise when I am as excited as I was to try this bread out.  I don't mind one, even two, rising times, but an overnight wait?  Well, I just couldn't do it.  The bread would just have to settle for a couple hours in the fridge while I picked the kids up from school and ran a few errands, but that was all it was going to get.  Thankfully, I think neither the flavor nor texture of the bread suffered.  One bite into the soft warm bread slathered with butter and I knew I hadn't sacrificed anything in the name of my impatience.  Pure heaven.

The best part- see those bright red gobs of goodness?  Those are fresh cranberries (well, actually frozen ones left over from last winter's scone making), not dried.  Without them, this bread would be nice, but nothing special.  It's the unexpected tartness contasting with the sweet pumpkin and warm spices that take the bread from the realm of the ordinary, to the extraordinary.  So as soon as those bags of cranberries start showing up in your market, scoop up several.  You'll want to have extra on hand to make this bread over and over through the fall and winter.  I promise, it's that good.

Oh, and just to be on the side of full disclosure, I didn't actually use pumpkin, but butternut squash leftover from a pound cake experiment.  Made no difference whatsoever, in my opinion.  And in place of the walnuts, I added toasted pumpkin seeds.  It just seemed appropriate.  I think you'd agree.

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As usual, I implore you to go find the full recipe over at our hostesses' blog, This Bountiful Backyard.  Rebecca didn't seem to enjoy the fresh cranberries as much as I did, but I won't hold that against her and neither should you.  She did a beautiful job hosting and taking care of the fantastic recipe.  Maybe some of the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers agreed with me.  I'm about to go find out!