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Cranberry Pecan Milk and Honey Bread
Sometimes I catch myself about to call a bread “addictive” just because it tastes good. That’s not the case here — I truly struggled to not eat this entire, quite large, loaf in one day. It’s so delicious and doesn’t need toasting or buttering, though doing so is lovely too. The bread is neither sweet nor sour, but is flavorful in a balanced and interesting way. The texture is also perfectly squishy and studded with pecans and dried cranberries. I recommend you toast the pecans before adding them to the dough for optimal flavor, and also try the teaspoon of honey in the egg wash on the crust for extra caramelization.
[Jump to recipe]
While this bread looks like challah or zopf, it doesn’t have eggs, oil, or butter in it. The dough is simply flour, milk, honey, salt, and sourdough starter; and it’s a variation on this recipe from a few years ago: Honey Whey Sourdough Bread with Sprouted Spelt.
There is a relatively larger amount of sourdough starter in the recipe to get the fermentation going. The honey also boosts the fermentation and doesn’t add noticeable sweetness to the final bread. By using milk to hydrate the dough and all purpose flour as the primary flour (70%), the crumb is quite tender. Meanwhile, the yecora rojo whole grain flour (30%) gives the dough more strength and the bread more flavor. You can substitute any hard red whole wheat flour if you don’t have yecora rojo, simply hold back some of the milk until you’re sure the dough needs it.
The Honey Whey recipe featured a 4-strand braid, while this bread goes with a 6-strand braid. You can pick whatever complexity you want for braiding. Here is a helpful how-to video I found on YouTube (also linked to in the recipe instructions) that shows braids from 3 to 9 strands. You could also shape the dough as a sandwich loaf and bake it in a large loaf pan if you want. The dough weighs 1.35 kg including the pecans and cranberries and 1.18 kg dough only, so you’ll want to scale down the recipe for a smaller pan. We have an FAQ on how to scale recipes.
The lovely braid and low-key baking method (on a baking sheet at 350°F) are a nice alternative to crusty artisan-style breads, but you could even shape the dough into a boule or batard, proof it in a banneton, and bake it at high temps in an enclosed vessel like a ceramic cloche or Dutch oven.
Make sure to check out the Photo Gallery after the recipe.
Cranberry Pecan Milk and Honey Bread
This braided bread is both beautiful and scrumptious. The texture is squishy-tender from the milk and all purpose flour; and the flavor is balanced and interesting with some whole wheat flour, plus the toasted pecans, dried cranberries, and hint of honey. It makes an impressive gift bread, but you'll want to make yourself one too.
Ingredients
Instructions
Photo Gallery
Shopping List
All Purpose Flour
Yecora Rojo Whole Grain Flour
Yecora Rojo Hard Red Spring Wheat Berries
Mockmill 100 Grain Mill
Sourdough Starter (Dry)
Breadtopia’s Choice Kitchen Scale
$18.00Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls — Set of 3
$39.99Bench Knife by Lamson — Walnut Handle
Parchment Paper Sheets — 200 Sheets
$19.00USA Pan Half Sheet Pan
$23.00USA Pan Half Sheet Cooling Rack
$16.99Cranberry Pecan Milk and Honey Bread