Normally when I bake and my little white cat is in the house, he’ll be in the kitchen with me. Hanging around by my feet, waiting for crumbs. He was like a dog. Yesterday I was baking a cranberry loaf cake. No sign of the little white cat. Today I baked a vegan chocolate cake. Still no sign of little white cat. Who knows what I will bake tomorrow, or the day after, or the week after that, but there will be no little white cat anymore. No one walking all over the counters, circling between my feet waiting for crumbs, or pawing at my leg for some icing.

I made this cranberry loaf yesterday because I was sad and I had fresh organic cranberries and when I’m sad and have ingredients, I bake.

Drizzled it with a bunch of glaze, because little white cat loved vanilla glaze.

This super easy and tasty quick-bread is studded with lemon zest, fresh cranberries, and pecans and topped with a cinnamony crumble of sorts. You can whip it up in under an hour if you’re really speedy. But if you feel like taking your time and being pensive then it might take a little longer. That’s okay too. It’s really moist and flavourful, not too sweet, not too sour from the cranberries. Perfect for whenever the hell you want to eat it. Breakfast? Snack? Second breakfast? Dinner? Midnight snack? Don’t let the man control you, you eat that loaf whenever you want.

This loaf reminds me of Christmas. The word loaf makes me feel weird. It’s an odd word, isn’t it? Loaf.

Here, go make some loaf of your own.

Cranberry Pecan Coffee Cake Loaf

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups of sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1/2 cup butter, cut into little cubes or something
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups apple cider (original recipe uses fresh squeezed orange juice, but I didn’t have any oranges. Using apple cider worked pretty damn well)
zest of two lemons
1 T vanilla
2 cups coarsely chopped fresh cranberries
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

for topping:

4 T butter, cold
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 T sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat your oven to 350F and grease and line 2 9×5″ loaf pans with parchment.

In a big ass bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter pieces and crumble together until it’s a coarse meal.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the juice, zest, and vanilla. Add this to the dry ingredients all at once, and mix to combine. Add the cranberries and pecans and fold in gently.  Divide the batter between your pans.

To make the crumble topping, work the topping ingredients together with your finger tips until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the batter and pop those suckers in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Mine were done perfectly at 50.

Let them sit on the counter for about 15 minutes before removing them from the pans and placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely.

For the glaze, whip together 1 cup of icing sugar with a few tablespoons of heavy cream and some vanilla until it’s the consistency you want. Drizzle it over the pretty loaves.

♥ happy baking