Cherry Pecan Bread
Nov 22nd, 2008 by SteveB
While trying to decide upon a bread to bake for the Thanksgiving Day table, I remembered a wonderful cranberry pecan bread that I had the pleasure of sampling some months ago. The bread was a creation of a good friend of mine, James McNamara, the talented head baker at Wave Hill Breads in Wilton, Connecticut. Cranberries, being a traditional staple of Thanksgiving here in New England, are what brought this bread to mind although, truth be told, cranberries are not one of my favorite fruits. Not being one to shy away from breaking with tradition, I decided to substitute cherries for the cranberries. The resulting bread is so good that it has me seriously rethinking my tendency to steer clear of bread ‘blend-ins’.
Final Dough
- 680 g King Arthur All-Purpose Flour
- 90 g Medium Rye Flour
- 455 g Water
- ½ Tsp. Instant Dried Yeast
- 15 g Salt
- 300 g Levain (mature sourdough starter, 100% hydration)
- 120 g Dried Cherries
- 120 g Pecans, roasted
The night before baking, the dried cherries are placed in a small container and just enough water is added to cover. The cherries are then allowed to hydrate overnight. In the interim, the pecans are broken into small pieces and roasted in a toaster oven at 350ºF until fragrant, about 10 minutes. The pecans are then allowed to cool.
The next morning, the cherries are strained. Both flours, water, yeast, and levain are added to the bowl of a stand mixer. The ingredients are then allowed to mix on the mixer’s lowest speed until they are all incorporated, about 2-3 minutes. The bowl is then covered with plastic wrap and allowed to rest for an autolyse period of 30 minutes. The contents of the bowl are then removed to a work surface and mixed by hand (Musings on Mixing…) for a few minutes, just until the dough starts to come together. Salt is then sprinkled on the dough and hand mixing is continued until the dough reaches medium development.
The dough is then transferred back into the bowl of the stand mixer and mixing on speed 1 is begun. The strained cherries and roasted pecans are slowly added to the dough and mixing is continued just until the add-ins are evenly distributed throughout the dough, about 1-2 minutes. The dough is then placed in a lightly oiled container, covered and fermented for two hours, folding the dough once, one hour into the fermentation.
After the two hour first fermentation, the dough is divided equally into two pieces and each piece is lightly pre-shaped into a round. After resting under a plastic sheet for 10 minutes, the pieces are tightly shaped into batards (Alternate Batard Shaping) and allowed to rest once again for 10 minutes under a plastic sheet. The batards are then shaped into a fendu, as shown below:[qt:http://breadcetera.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/CherryPecan1.MOV 500 375]
After allowing the loaves to proof, seam side down, for 2 hours at 74ºF, they are then flipped onto a transfer peel and then slid from the transfer peel to the oven peel so that they are now seam side up. The loaves are then loaded into the oven and baked at 425ºF for 40 minutes, the first 15 minutes under steam. Allow the loaves to cool before devouring.
Mmmmm! I’d love to bite in slices of that bread on this Sunday morning. No Thanksgiving Day next Thursday in France, but it sure is not a reason not to try this beautiful bread!
We were the lucky eaters of the cherry pecan loaf today. It was splendid. It continues to be splendid. But not for long. Bravo!
Flo, I hope you get the chance to bake this bread. I think you’ll enjoy it. I really like the way the tartness of the cherries complements the richness of the roasted pecans. I had a slice smeared with Nutella with my breakfast this morning and it was wonderful.
Ellie and Irwin, I’m so glad you enjoyed the bread. It was great seeing both of you and I hope we get together again very soon.
Beautiful! I make a very similar bread and there really is not a much better combination than cherries and pecans — good enough to win over even the blend-in averse 😉
Susan, you have so many wonderful breads on your site, I would be surprised if I couldn’t find it there! 🙂
Susan’s sponge-based version can be found here.
Hi Steve;
I just want to say thank you to share this great bread with us. I baked 2 fendus, 1 boule last night , we taste one of it this morning, it is so Yummy. I even bring one boule to the office and share it with my colleagues, they all love it.
I am sorry you can not read the posting in my blogger because I wrote them in Chinese, I wrote to tell my friends that this is a tasty bread and how I adjust your recipe a little bit to make my cherry walnut bread.
BTW, I saw you put Google translator in your site, it did a terrible job in translating Chinese to English (None of sentences make any sense, all the expression in the words have been twisted)
Hi Web,
I’m glad you and your colleagues enjoyed the bread. I visited your site and your cherry walnut bread looks delicious!
I wish there was some better way to make this blog more readable to Chinese readers. Unfortunately, computer-based translations don’t handle English/Chinese translations very well. If you have any suggestions in this regard, please let me know.
The shaping of your bread looks great. Did you see the video documentary of the 2002 Coupe du Monde?
Thanks, Sherri. It’s quite possible. I recall a lot of publicity for the Coupe du Monde around that time.
Steve,
Glad to have stumbled on your blog and this recipe. Your instructions are impeccably written. Are you an Analytical Chemist? Your writing style is how scientists write SOP’s and analytical procedures, i.e., assume the reader has no pre-existing knowledge of the method. Works for me! I can definitely follow this.
One question: which mixer do you use? I know speed settings can be different depending on the brand. E.g., speed 2 on a HObart is way faster than on a KA.
Hi cake diva, I’m glad you’ve managed to find us.
I’m an Organic Chemist by training. Perhaps I should write the next formula in moles instead of grams. 🙂
You raise a good point. I should have specified the mixer I am using. For ingredient incorporation and blend-ins only, I use a KitchenAid Professional 6, ten-speed mixer. For the actual dough mixing (kneading) and accompanying gluten development, I find that the hand mixing method described in the post gives the best results.
Steve,
This cherry pecan loaf sounded very interesting when I came across the recipe so I had to try it. I baked it as a batard rather than as a fendu as my baking stone is no longer servicable and I had to bake it in a Chicago Metallic perforated Italian bread pan. As a result it lacked some of the oven spring that would be obtained from depositing it directly on the hot stone, but that is a minor price to pay compared to the outstanding taste of the finished product… far superior to anything obtainable at the grocery store.
I resisted temptation and let it cool for an hour and a half before tasting it. The first taste was the crispy, crunchy tip, followed by a thin buttered slice with a chewy crust. The hint of rye melded nicely with the pecans and cherries. I couldn’t stop at that point, it was so good, that I had to try it with some cheese. I tried a cheddar, which was nice but not outstanding. That was followed by a bleu-veined cheese which paired very nicely with the cherries. I could make a meal of it!
Thank you so much for posting such a tasty recipe. I can’t wait to try some of your others.
BjornErik, I’m glad you enjoyed the cherry pecan bread. Your description of eating it has given me the urge to bake some again very soon.
Hello Steve,
Every Saturday I bake bread to sell at church to help support our missionaries. Yesterday I baked 6 loaves of your Cherry Pecan Bread. The first two were too dark/burnt (my bad for not watching my oven more carefully on an untested recipe), the next two too light (but still good enough to sell), the final two perfect in color but with one that didn’t open (this was my first time trying the fendu technique). That “unopened” one I cut into after church to check the flavor–PERFECT! Chewy crust, moist, flavorful crumb with an occassional crunch or burst of fruity goodness–just wonderful! Thanks for passing on this recipe. Patty in Sacramento, CA
Patty,
You are quite welcome! Keep at it…your fendu technique will improve with practice.
Steve,
I’m not sure if you recycle the water used to hydrate the cherries, but I do when hydrating any dried fruit for bread (cherries, cranberries, apricots and figs) and find it adds depth to the fruit flavor of the bread. Also, I recommend substituting semi-sweet chocolate chunks for the pecans, cherry-chocolate bread is a family favorite.
Bob
Chicago, IL
Another wonderful recipe. My best run of one of your recipes yet. The flavor of the tart-sweet cherries and nutty pecans is fantastic. I substituted 25g whole wheat flour along with the AP & rye – not sure if that made any difference. It’s hard to wait for these loaves cool before tasting 🙂 Thanks again.
I’ve been enjoying your blog immensely. I find it very informative, and great for a novice bread baker like myself. You are kind for sharing your experiences in this way.
I saw some dried currants when i was in a town with a snazzy grocery store (my small hometown has slim pickin’s) and i immediately remembered browsing over this loaf. I come back to it wondering how a substitution of dried currants for the cherries, and toasted almonds for the walnuts would be. Also, do you have any experience with nut meals? I have a decent food processor to grind nuts but for now, only hand mixing for me. Might as well learn in the manor of those who perfected the art long ago. How do you think 3/4 of the nuts ground would be? Also, I would like to try this recipe, if possible, without a sourdough starter until i build up the courage to make one. Perhaps a poolish? How would that effect the flavor? Is there a system to come up with a poolish weight, like a percentage of final doughs flour or flour + water? Sorry for entirely too many questions and thank you very much.
Chris J,
It’s always gratifying to hear when someone gets enjoyment from reading Bread cetera. Thank you for the compliments.
As readers of this blog can attest, I’m a big fan of experimentation. By all means, feel free to try using other dried fruit and nut combinations in this formula. The use of nut meals (as shown here for example) is another possibility. Understand, though, that the delightfully ‘chunky’ nature of the bread will be compromised to some extent by making this modification. Also, for those without a sourdough starter, one could use an equal weight of poolish as a replacement for the 100% hydration levain.
Could I add some sprouted wheat berries to this recipe? This looks gorgeous. Glad to find your site.
Hi Jacqueline,
By all means, feel free to add some sprouted wheat berries to this recipe. Personally, I’d be more inclined to try them in a multigrain bread such as the one described here.
Thanks for the response Steve! I’m a pretty new baker and have just fed my sourdough starter and begun a rye starter. I don’t even have a scale so I’m using Measuring Cups, etc. That multigrain loaf looks like the holy grail to me. I may add the sprouted wheat to that recipe and use my rye sourdough starter. With what little I know and am learning about baking, it seems that the Bread flour would be necessary to handle the extra weight of the grains. I’ve also read they “cut” the strands of gluten. Most of the bread I’ve baked is tasty enough but I never have really achieved the light airy texture you’ve demo’d here. I’ve got flax seeds and ground flax as well as sunflower seeds and pepitas hanging about, maybe I’ll mix a bit of those in trying to keep proportions. Do you think I can use the rye sourdough starter that’s working now? I do have KAF bread flour on hand, too. Perhaps even some yeast somewhere…
Also can someone recommend a conversion to cups/tablespoons?
Thanks!
I made this bread with cranberry and walnuts. It is so delicious!
Thank you very much for beautiful recipe.