Day 9 - Jingle Bread
The 13 Days of Victory Kitchen Christmas
Orange, Nut Cinnamon Roll Bread would be another good name for this recipe, but “Jingle Bread” is definitely more catchy! I used pecans for this recipe, but walnuts or even raisins can be used.
I busted out my vintage nut chopper for this one. (See photo below.) No other tool gets nuts quite the same size or texture. I remember my mom using one when I was growing up (she only had the green part - not the lid or the jar), and I loved helping her. In fact, I let my 6 year old crank out the nuts. It’s just so satisfying!
What makes this recipe unique is that after you make a regular “cinnamon orange roll”, after slicing them you layer them into a heavily greased bundt pan. Mine has a removeable bottom/center which made taking the bread out a lot easier.
I’ll admit that this recipe wasn’t a hit with my family. It is just way too heavy on the orange zest with not nearly enough cinnamon. I also may have overbaked it… That’s what happens when you’re doing homework upstairs and you don’t hear the timer go off. Yikes!
I’d like to try this recipe again—lessen the orange zest and load in way more cinnamon. Then again, if you love orange then the recipe’s proportions might be perfect! Overall, though, it’s a great concept and is super fun to cut into!
This recipe comes from a Pillsbury’s flour ad from the Farm Journal & Farmer’s Wife magazine from December 1944.
And a close up of the recipe:
Join me tomorrow for Day 8!
I just found your writings and podcast and want to thank you for your work. I am a baby boomer and your work is bringing back many memories. I remember going with Mom to the freezer locker with freezer boxes of sweet corn or pitted cherries or other foods we had harvested from our garden and orchard. How strange it seemed in the heat of summer to dig out our winter coats to take to town along with boxes of food to freeze.
Mom ( or sometimes Dad) would get the key from the butcher and, donned in winter coats, we would enter the subzero locker room. Mom would locate our locker box, unlock it, pull out the drawer and we would fill it with our bounty. I remember her glasses fogging up when we left the ‘vault’.
It was an honor to get to help, like a rite of passage. This was not an outing for silly or disobedient children.
Yum!! This is so festive! And that vintage nut-chopper is amazing.