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Fruit and Nut Braid

This tender loaf, loaded with dried fruit and nuts, makes delicious coffee bread.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 large eggs + 1 yolk (save the white for the glaze)
- 3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (See "tips", below.)
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup Baker's Special Dry Milk or 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 1/8 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia or lemon oil, or 1 teaspoon Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor
- 1 1/2 cups dried fruit: any mixture of cranberries, cherries, apricots, raisins, or pineapple
- 1/2 cup pine nuts or chopped macadamia nuts
Instructions
- Heat the butter and the milk together until the butter melts.
- Cool to lukewarm, then stir in the 2 whole eggs and one yolk.
- Mix in the remaining ingredients, omitting the fruit and nuts, until the dough is homoegneous.
- Let rest for 30 minutes, then knead until the dough is smooth and satiny. (Use a bread machine set on the dough cycle, if you like.) Knead in the fruit and nuts at the end.
- Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours, or until the dough is puffy in bulk.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased surface, divide it into three pieces, and let it rest for 10 minutes.
- Grease (or line with parchment) a baking sheet, or grease a 10" tube pan.
- Roll each piece about 30" long. (If the dough "fights back," let it rest for a few minutes midway through the rolling.)
- Braid or simply twist the strands together.
- Place the braid on the pan. Pinch the ends together.
- Cover and let rise for about an hour, until it's puffy.
- While the dough rises, preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Whisk the remaining egg white with 1 tablespoon water, and brush it over the risen loaf.
- Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, until it's a deep golden brown. Remove from the oven, and after 15 minutes turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool.
- Store well-wrapped for up to 5 days at room temperature or 3 months frozen.
Tips from our bakers
- For added fiber, substitute 1 to 1 1/2 cups King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour, or 1 cup Hi-maize Natural Fiber for an equal amount of the all-purpose flour.
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Reviews
Bread was easy and rise beautifully...I did use orange glaze as one baker suggested...looks so professional! One question, could I add frozen blueberries or is this strictly for dried fruit...Hi Ali. Fresh berries may add too much liquid and leave your bread with a soggy texture. If you can dry out your blueberries or if you can find dried berries, those would be perfect! Annabelle@KAF
Wow! So good! Really pretty easy. I did leave out the nuts. And subbed in a relatively small amount of KAF WW flour for the white. Took MUCH longer than recipe indicated. LONG rise. Not sure why. Well ... I think the dough started off cooler than recommended. Still, it was about a four hour first rise. Shrug. I made rolls instead of loaves. DELICIOUS. Of course with a stick of butter .... Sigh. Still, so good. Dough is so soft and f fun to work with. Highly recommended.
Great coffee bread for the holidays! I used Fruitcake Fruits and pine nuts, braided, and baked in a tube pan. Beautiful and delicious!
Quite easy - by far the most difficult part was incorporating the fruit and nuts. I doubled the recipe and the one round turned extremely well . . . the other . . . . ummm . . . not so much - it just sort of fell apart, but it still tasted quite good. The good looking one looked nowhere nearly as good as the recipe photo - but still, quite presentable. I used a mix of dried fruit - apricots, cherries, cranberries, and blueberries. I had planned to soak them before mixing them in with the dough, but didn't get around to it. It might not be a bad idea, but I wouldn't put it high on my list - the fruit wasn't dry at all. The rising time is quite long - the first one was 2+ hours. The second was right around an hour. Might be good to add some chocolate chips - especially with the dried cherries, and cut back on the sugar. I did cut back a bit - a few tablespoons, but might cut closer to half next time. I'd make again - but it is not an everyday bread - too rich. Quite easy for party/gift - especially if one is going to be in the kitchen/ around the house for hours anyway.
This bread is very easy to make and was eaten quickly. I used half white whole wheat flour, macadamia nuts and dried cherries. I did a simple icing with powdered sugar, milk, and a little orange extract. It worked out great and looks like it came from a professional bakery.
This was a lot of fun to make and it is delicious!! I'll be making this again so i can try different combinations of dried fruits.
This recipe is very good & fun to make.