All Girl Scouts are known for their Thin Mints and Tagalongs, but Wareham's Junior Troop 81794 has been recognized for another culinary creation: cranberry bread.

The troop has been making the recipe, called "Zesty, Zingy Cranberry Bread," during the holiday season for three years. This past year, the girls donated more than a dozen loaves to St. Patrick's church, and helped serve the bread to Wareham's homeless during one of the church's dinners.

"We helped them serve the whole meal," said Alanna Young, one of the troop's 11 members. "Everybody just kept asking for more bread!"

The troop was recently recognized in the A.D. Makepeace and Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' "Make it Better with Cranberries" cooking contest. The girls' bread garnered a second place prize, and a $50 gift certificate to Tihonet Village Market. (Troop Leader Ana Cobb said the troop will be heading to the market for lunch very soon!)

The Girl Scouts used cranberries grown in Wareham for the bread, but troop-member Paige Cogswell says there's a "secret ingredient" in the bread that makes it so tasty: orange peels!

Though baking the bread is a learning experience for the scouts, Cobb, who heads the group along with Troop Leader Chris Cogswell, said the activity is much more than a lesson in measuring and cooking techniques.

"They get to see the impact of their work," Cobb said. She remembered a previous year that the girls dropped off their bread at the church, and one attendee played his harmonica for the girls. It brought tears to the eyes of the church's volunteers, who said he hadn't picked up his harmonica in weeks, but did so just for the Girl Scouts.

It's nice to do good deeds "so that the people who don't always have food can have some," Young said. Her fellow troop members agreed. "And we make it yummy so they like it!'