Add a Splash of Color—and Nutrition—to Snack Time with Cranberries!
They roll, they float, they’re round, they’re red – CRANBERRIES are a wonderful winter fruit! A good source of Vitamin C and fiber, cranberries can be enjoyed in many ways—introduce fresh or chopped berries to homemade oatmeal cookies, rice or stuffing, make your own cranberry sauce and drizzle over your favorite yogurt, or simply enjoy on a slice of freshly-made cranberry bread.
Spark interest in this bright fruit with these fun cranberry facts. Then try our featured recipe and add nutritious variety to your preschooler’s diet.
The Scoop on Cranberries
- Cranberries grow in bogs near wetlands and marshes in the northern United States and Canada
- Cranberries are harvested by flooding the bog, shaking the vines with a machine and letting the berries float to the top. Let your child envision a bog with the Cranberry bog activity below!
- Harvested in September and October, Cranberries are available fresh through January
Treat your Family to the Following Cranberry Recipe
Let your child help you prepare this yummy cranberry dish, and enjoy the cranberry activity below with your Preschooler
Mini Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
| 3 cups all-purpose flour |
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice |
| 2 teaspoons baking soda |
1 1/2 teaspoons salt |
| 3 cups granulated sugar |
1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin |
| 4 large eggs |
1 cup vegetable oil |
| 1/2 cup orange juice or water |
1 cup OCEAN SPRAY® CRAISINS® Sweetened Dried Cranberries or OCEAN SPRAY® Fresh Cranberries |
PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease and flour five or six 5 x 3-inch mini-disposable or metal loaf pans.
COMBINE flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, vegetable oil and orange juice in large mixer bowl; beat until just blended. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stir just until moistened. Fold in cranberries. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pans.
BAKE for 50 to 55 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
Recipe makes five or six mini loaves.
*Recipe from Meals.com
Activity – Cranberry Bog
Help your preschooler visualize a cranberry bog as you wash some fresh cranberries for the Cranberry bread, or for some recipes of your own.
| fresh cranberries |
| Water |
13x9 inch baking dish |
Pour fresh cranberries into a 13x9 inch-baking dish. Let your child slowly pour in water (flooding the bog). Watch the cranberries float to the top. Have your child move the berries around with a spoon to mimic the farmers guiding the berries out of the bog.