Back in the day, when I was all anti-establishment and down with the man, I would have never found myself partaking in Black Friday madness. But this year, I'm counting down the days to Black Friday because we need a new couch. Couches are expensive! Sales on couches are good! Do you know what two dogs and a little boy do to a cheap couch in three years? Terrible things.
One thing I won't be doing the day after Thanksgiving is eating leftovers because, since it's just the three of us for Thanksgiving this year, I decided not to make a big dinner. Sad, right?!
But if you do happen to have Thanksgiving dinner leftovers, save some cranberry sauce to make this Leftover Cranberry Sauce Bread.
Yes! You put the sauce in the bread! It has to be the chunky kind, not the jellied variety, of course.
This is a variation of my mom's famous strawberry bread. I swapped out the strawberries for a cup of cranberry sauce and it works out perfectly.
And if you still have leftover sauce after making the bread, you can serve it with a spoonful of cranberries on top.
More Cranberry Sauce Things!
If you're looking for other ideas, a few years ago I posted 9 Ways to Use Leftover Cranberry Sauce. And if you're still in need of a cranberry sauce recipe, here are two that I can vouch for:
Ginger Orange Cranberry Sauce // The secret ingredient is ginger beer!
Happy Thanksgiving!
📖 Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
- ½ cup warm water
- ¾ cup whole wheat flour
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup white sugar (organic for vegan-friendly)
- ⅓ cup coconut milk
- ½ cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup cranberry sauce, not the jellied kind!
- olive oil mister or cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Combine the ground flax and water in a small bowl; set aside. Whisk the flours, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. In another medium mixing bowl, whisk the coconut milk into the sugar until creamed. Slowly pour in the coconut oil, whisking to incorporate it into the sugar mixture. Stir in the flax mixture and vanilla extract, then pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in the cranberries.
- Spray 3 mini loaf pans (3 x 5.75 inches) with oil or grease them with coconut oil. Divide the mixture into the 3 pans.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, then remove the loaves from the bread pans and finish cooling on a rack.
Lisa @ Greek Vegetarian says
Wow, Kiersten, I just have to tell you how in awe I am of you and the energy and enthusiasm you put into your blog. I have missed a few of your posts recently and coming back here I see I’ve in fact missed a LOT of your posts, and not only that, you have a gorgeous new look to your blog, and even better photography. Wonderful, wonderful work, Kiersten. Yours is the kind of blog that inspires me to get back on track with my own blogging routine (which has sadly fallen by the wayside).
I love this recipe, and even more lovely is that it’s one of your mum’s recipes that you veganised for your recently-veganised mum!!! So serendipitous 🙂
Have a lovely Thanksgiving xx
Kiersten says
Aw, thank you--that means so much coming from you because I just adore your blog! But really, whenever people tell me that, I have to remind them that this is my full-time job now, so I really have no excuse not to put so much energy and time into my blog. Before I got laid off last year, I was much more relaxed about things! There's really no better motivation than having no other job prospects. 😉
Liz says
"(Cats: This is why we can’t have nice things.)" Just sub in "S.O." for cats, and that's my life LOL so I DEFINITELY feel your pain and anguish. 🙂 (Apparently, he was raised in a cave with wolves who had no need for furniture, and he tries hard to keep that tradition by demolishing every piece we own. 🙂 )
Your mom is a BAD ASS! I love hearing about older individuals/Baby Boomers adopting a plant-based diet; I'm always so amazed and inspired by them. It's SUCH an admirable change considering how HARD it is to change your habits and way of life, the older you get. I'm just in my early 30's, and I ALREADY feel so cemented in my ways (not necessarily a BAD thing). It might be kind of interesting to feature one or two of the recipes you veganized for your moms. Ya know, give us the original recipe, then the steps you took to veganize and knock the sugar, then show us the recipe you came up with. Might be interesting, no?
Oh. And I'm pretty sure I won't be able to have a good's night sleep without seeing your new couch, or, at the very least, know what kind of bargain you got on it. 🙂 I'll be couch shopping soon, too.
Kiersten says
How does your SO destroy your furniture?! Maybe I don't want to know. 😉 I ended up waiting on the couch. I wanted to take advantage of the Crate & Barrel 15% off sale (15% off isn't usually too great, but on a big-ticket item, that's a lot of money!), but the couch we ended up liking (http://www.crateandbarrel.com/taraval-3-seat-sofa/f49527) was still a little too spendy for our budget right now. Sigh. I swear to you, IKEA has ruined furniture shopping for me because I want everything to be $400 and I want to get a cinnamon bun afterwards. But our last 3 couches have been IKEA and they have each lasted us about 2 years. West Elm has 25% off of $1000 or more, so I considered them too, but our local WE doesn't have many couches in store and buying one without sitting on it makes me nervous!
My mom, my uncle, my aunt, and my great aunt have all gone vegan in the past few years. And my grandma is almost there. How crazy is that? It's funny because I always had the radical diet growing up and now I'm the moderate one because I still eat dairy and eggs a few times a week. The other bread recipes that I veganized for my mom are going in my cookbook! 😀
Eat Good 4 Life says
This looks awesome. I am loving cranberry season 🙂 We too stayed at home, just the 4 of us, because my husband's relatives leave 10 hours away. We will be seeing them over Christmas so that will suffice 🙂
Kiersten says
Sometimes it's nice to have a relaxed, low-key Thanksgiving too! 🙂 I agree, it's definitely too much to travel that far twice within a month.
Sherri says
Delicious! I made the following alterations to fit in into our "clean eating" diet. Replaced all of the flour with Trader Joes gluten free all purpose flour, used organic granulated coconut sugar instead of white sugar, added 1/4 tsp. grated lemon peel and a few grates of nutmeg. Baked in 8.5" loaf pan for about 40 minutes. I'll definitely make this again!
Sherri says
Oh forgot...I didn't have flax seed so I replaced it with hemp seed 🙂
Kiersten says
I'm glad it turned out well--thanks for the feedback! 🙂
Jeanette | Jeanette's Healthy Living says
Your cats sound like my boys! I can't tell you how beaten up our couch was before I finally decided to replace it. Boys are so hard on furniture and everything else. Love how you converted your mom's recipes so she could enjoy them. This quick bread looks incredibly good. I've got to make gluten-free bread for my son, but I'm going to give his a try using almond flour. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Kiersten!
Kiersten says
Let me know how it works out with the almond flour if you make it! Another reader successfully substituted gluten-free flour, so that might be another option. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving too!
Jessica @ Jessiker Bakes says
Such an ingenious idea! I can see a simple sweet bread recipe being uplifted with the addition of cranberry sauce! Thanks for this recipe Kiersten!
Nichole | Green Cuisine Queen says
Cats and couches! I love my kitty and thankfully she does not scratch anything, but I used to have a cat who did. And the jumping on the counter thing...drove me crazy! I love cranberry and this is such a good idea. Unfortunately, we did not have any leftover cranberry sauce. But I might try this anyways with dried cranberries or strawberries! Sounds so good. 🙂
Kiersten says
All of our cats scratch, but two of them are very good at scratching the scratching posts and mats we have for them and others will step around them to get to the couch. They are too smart sometimes!
mjskit says
Well, I've made cranberry bread but never cranberry "sauce" bread. What a great idea! It looks marvelous!! Did you find your couch? 🙂
Kiersten says
Well, I did find my couch, but it ended up being one of the more expensive ones there, so I'm waiting for an even better sale. 😉
Daniela @ FoodrecipesHQ says
Oh what a cute bread! I think cranberry is just perfect in it. Good luck with your search of a perfect sofa... will you blog from it? (I always write while laying on the sofa :))
Kiersten says
Ha! I do! I tried to get out of that habit and start using my desk, but my desk isn't nearly as comfortable. 😉
Heather says
Can I sub canola oil for the coconut oil & regular milk for the coconut milk? We're not vegan, so I don't keep them in the pantry & I'd like to use what I have.
Kiersten says
If you sub in regular milk, I'd use whole just because coconut milk is so fatty. I think the canola oil will work fine; my mom's original recipe called for butter.
Lisa says
HI, I'd like to make this today, but do not have coconut milk or whole milk, how was the butter used? Or, can I use evaporated milk? Thanks!!
Kiersten Frase says
I haven't made the recipe with evaporated milk, so I can't tell you how it would turn out.
The Peace Patch says
lol...how did you know I have cranberry sauce aplenty after T-day? We were sent home with a giant bowlful and will never finish it...this is perfect! I wonder if the recipe would work with orange marmalade too... 🙂
Kiersten says
Cranberry sauce was always the last leftover we had left after Thanksgiving--that container would sit in the fridge for days! If you try it with marmalade, let me know how it turns out...
Genevieve says
Those loaves are so perfect and adorable! i wouldn't have thought of swapping strawberries with cranberries! I wonder if you could just kind of mash up some whole cranberries instead of using leftover sauce...I know a lot of cranberry sauces have a high amount of sugar in them, so it would cut down on extra sugar, but maybe it would end up being too tart? (sorry if you already answered this question, I didn't read through the other comments!)
Kiersten says
I think I would probably mash the cranberries with a little maple syrup or honey just to make sure the bread doesn't end up being tart. I've actually never tried whole cranberries outside of a sauce or chutney, so I'm not sure how tart they are!
Shirley says
Must make! Can I tell you how much I love cranberry sauce? I was eating it straight out of the Trader Joe's jar one day, and my work friends thought I was weird. "No turkey chaser?" Are you going to feature any more of the recipe makeovers you did for your mom?
Oh, and I feel you on the couch. About 2 weeks ago, Gandalf suddenly started scratching our couch! I put the sticky paws tape on parts of it, and he would move over and scratch a new spot. Little brat. I didn't want to tape the entire couch, and the stuff would come off and stick to me when I'd walk past the couch too. Here's hoping 'nipping up his scratching post and moving it next to the couch works.
Kiersten says
I have a few vegan bread recipes that I'm putting in my cookbook. 🙂 And I think we're just going to have to tape our whole cough. Or cover the whole thing in foil. Something! We have FIVE(!!!) scratching posts and mats all around the couch, but it doesn't make a difference.
SK says
Made with leftover cranberry orange relish and added walnuts. So delicious and moist!
Kiersten says
I'm glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Susan Weintrob says
This is the first time I have come to your blog. The leftover Cranberry Sauce Bread looks terrific. I so love ways to use leftovers and this is on my list to make after Thanksgiving. Also want to mention that your logo is so very nice. Makes me smile.
Kiersten Frase says
Thank you! 🙂 I hope you enjoy the bread!
Michele says
I don't know what happened but mine did not rise, it was super dense. I love the flavor, but bummed with how it turned out.
Leslee says
Loved this bread. Although I didn't have the coconut milk so I used vanilla flavor soy milk, buckwheat flour instead of whole wheat flour and I did bake in a regular loaf pan for 50 mins. Turned out awesome!!!! Thanks for sharing
Debra Gulley says
one year had whole berry cranberry sauce leftover, as well as pumpkin, so made pumpkin bars and swirled the cranberry throughout... omg!! gave several mini pans away as gifts and received many compliments!
Mary says
Mine did not rise much and are very gummy even after extra baking time. Shouldn't there be baking powder in this recipe? I'm thinking that might be the problem.
Alissa says
Sorry to hear that! The baking soda should make it rise. If your baking soda is old that could be the problem. You can test it by sprinkling some in a glass of vinegar - if it fizzes it's good, and if not, it's time for a new box. 🙂
Pennie says
This recipe is amazing!! so happy to find leftover cranberry sauce in the fridge. Even moe excited because i just found some more, so in goes another batch.
FYI, i replaced the flour with King Arthur GF cup for cup flour..Came out perfect!!
Thanks again, love your recipes!!