Pecan & Cranberry Bread

This bread is really jut an extension of one of my favorite bread recipes. The basic recipe for the bread is as follows:

Add 1 cup of 105 degree water (I always use filtered water because our water is pretty heavily chlorinated… I’m not sure of the effect it’d have on the yeast, but it probably wouldn’t be wonderful.) to 1/3 Cup White Sugar and 1 pack of Active Yeast in your mixer’s bowl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stir the water, sugar and yeast together, cover your mixing bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for 30 minutes to let the yeast “proof”.

After 30 minutes, it’ll look like so:

After the yeast has proofed, add 3/4 tsp Salt, 2 TBSP Vegetable Oil, and 3 cups of flour.

In the above picture, you might be able to see that I also added something else for this batch… but.. everything above is the basic bread recipe…so, mix all of the above ingredients with the dough hook in your mixer until they all stick together, and the dough cleans the bowl.

 

Now.. it’s time to make this special.. so, above, you’ll see that I added about 3 TBSP of honey. This will be a sweeter bread, so instead of just adding buckets of sugar, I’m  adding honey for a bit of body and different taste.

Next, I’ve got 2oz of chopped pecans.

add the pecans to the dough, and mix to incorporate.

Then, chop 2 to 2-1/2 cups of dried cranberries.

Add the cranberries to the dough and mix those in as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the cranberries are mixed in, add about 3 – 3-1/2 TBSP of brown sugar.

Mix the brown sugar in until the dough has formed up nicely again, and everything is mixed in happily together. At this point, you might have to adjust your dough. If it’s too sticky, add some flour. If it’s to crumbly, add some water. The dough should be elastic and cleaning the sides of the bowl.

See that? Too wet. I had to add a bit of flour to get it right.

Bingo bango. Formed up nicely, and didn’t stick to my hands… just what you’re looking for.

So, now it’s rising time. Totally a drag. So, it’s a good time to do some dishes, some grocery shopping, picture editing… trying to remove the smell of onions from the professional grade camera that you’re using that you’ll now never be able to sell…. you know… whatever’s clever. Pull the dough out of the bowl, spray it with some baking spray, and cover with plastic. The first rise is for 1 hour. Then, punch it down, and let it rise again for 30 minutes. After the first rise, put your ceramic baking wheel in the oven and preheat to 350. In the next 30 minutes of rising, your oven / ceramic should be preheated. Once it’s risen the 2nd time, don’t punch it down. Sprinkle some corn meal on your ceramic, plop the dough on it, and paint some melted butter on the bread with a brush. Bake for 30 minutes, then brush on some more butter, and bake for another 15-20 minutes. You can tell when the bread is done by tapping on it with your finger… it should make a hollow **thud** noise, and look like so:

Looky there. Isn’t that about awesome? Well, you should taste it. It’s frickin’ amazing. For Thanksgiving, I made a similar loaf but with cranberries and black walnuts. However, I didn’t add the honey and brown sugar. So, I was a bigger fan of the black walnuts, but the added honey and brown sugar is definitely an awesome addition…. So… use black walnuts for an added kick. Use pecans otherwise. In either case, add the honey and brown sugar.