Apricot Cranberry Pecan Bread
Full of dried fall inspired fruits and toasty pecans, this apricot cranberry pecan bread is a wonderful welcome into fall bread making! And it smells utterly delicious!

Is everyone still deep in the throes of bread making? Are we over the sourdough bread trend? Can you find yeast yet? What I love about this recipe is that it falls between both camps of bread making, and can satisfy both the sourdough lovers and the yeasted dough makers in each camp.
If you’ve been working with sourdough these last few months, you’ve probably developed and unhealthy attachment to your sourdough starter, and given it a name by now. Mine is Harold.
Clearly, I’ve gone ’round the bend… It could also be the newborn nighttime feeding related sleep deprivation…
I’ve been making countless rounds of sourdough, testing and retrying recipes to find one that works best for me – because really each and every one is so different! But I also love a good yeasted bread, where it’s a little easier to manage, a little less guesswork, a little more predictable, and just as satisfying to cut into when all is said and done.

This apricot cranberry pecan bread bridges both of those categories! It has a touch of yeast in it, but also incorporates the principles of sourdough, by using a pre-fermented dough known as a “biga” (bee-gah). The biga has a lower hydration rate than a typical sourdough starter. If you’ve been keeping one of those alive for an extended period of time, you know that you feed it with a 1:1 ratio of flour and water which makes a pretty soupy mixture. With the biga, it is a shaggy pre-ferment of about 45-60% hydration, meaning more flour to less water along with that touch of yeast to kick things off.
And what else I love about this recipe, is that it is customizable to you and whatever dried fruit or nuts you might have in your pantry. I love the apricot cranberry pecan bread flavors here, but it would be utterly delightful with cherries and walnuts.

This recipe has been fun to make in between all of the endless feedings, nap times, chores, and toddler wrangling since we brought Harrison home. It is a forgiving dough, and spacing out all of the folding and resting periods make this not feel quite so daunting, like you have to keep an eagle eye over it, which is a relief.
I highly suggest you slice this apricot cranberry pecan bread up for breakfast, toast it and slather it in butter. It goes wonderfully next to your cup of coffee or tea.

Inspired Bread and Cake Recipes to Try
Sourdough Blueberry Coffee Cake
Blueberry Apricot Skillet Cake
Roasted Garlic Sourdough Focaccia
Blueberry Pecan Crumble Coffee Cake
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Apricot Cranberry Pecan Bread
- Prep Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours
- Yield: 1 large boule/round loaf 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Description
Full of dried fall inspired fruits and toasty pecans, this apricot cranberry pecan bread is a wonderful welcome into fall bread making! And it smells utterly delicious!
Ingredients
Biga – Pre-fermented Starter
- 1 1/4 cup All Purpose Flour (150g)
- 1/2 cup Water (115g) – Filtered best, but tap is fine
- 1/4 tsp Instant Rise Yeast
Dough
- All of Biga
- 3/4 (170g) Water, filtered best
- 2 1/4 cups (270g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Instant Rise Yeast
- 1/2 cup diced Dried Apricots
- 1/2 cup chopped Dried Cranberries
- 3/4 cup chopped Pecans (toasted is great, but it’s okay if you don’t toast them, too)
- 1 Egg + 2 Tbsp Water for Egg Wash
Instructions
Biga
- In a quart mason jar, or medium mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for the biga and stir together to create a shaggy dough. Make sure as much of the flour is incorporated as possible, it will be a very thick dough.
- Cover and set aside at room temperature to rise and pre-ferment, between 12-36 hours.
Bread Dough
- In a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment knead together the biga, water, flour, salt, and yeast to create the dough. Knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides and bottom of the bowl. Knead for about 5 minutes, or so for this stage.
- Add in the dried fruit and pecans to the bowl, and continue to knead until mostly incorporated. (I needed to hand knead the dough to ensure that the fruits and nuts were incorporated evenly into the dough. If you need to do this, sprinkle a clean work surface, or silicone baking sheet lightly with flour and knead by hand.)
- Place the dough into a lightly greased bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise for 30-45 minutes, or until nearly doubled. After this time pull and fold the dough by pulling the edges of the dough into the center and pressing down. This will create the gluten. Repeat this process again FOUR times total, after 30-45 minutes rest period in between.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Shape the dough into a taut ball (boule), and place it seam side down onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Allow the dough to rise one final time for about 45 minutes.
- Just prior to baking, brush the dough with the egg wash, and score the bread with a very sharp knife, razor, or bread lame to create a 1/2″ deep cut along the top of the dough.
- Reduce heat to 425 in the oven, and bake for 15 minutes.
- Further reduce the heat in the oven to 375 degrees, and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the bread reaches an internal temperature of 195. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on a wire baking rack before you slice it.
- Slice, toast, and slather in butter.
Notes
Adapted from King Arthur Flour’s Apricot Cranberry Pecan Bread catalog recipe
Keywords: cranberry bread recipe, pecan bread, cranberry nut bread
Love the texture!
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I made this today–What a fabulous rise on the boule! i have used KAF’s recipe several times, but I REALLY appreciate your adaptations. KAF’s recipe says to refrigerate several hours after the 2nd rise, but that always turns my boules into gray, deflated rocks. Your recipe is absolutely perfect. And adding the whole egg & water as a wash is brilliant. The loaf is so shiny, crisp and beautiful. I’ll be making several of these to give for Christmas gifts. (I used raisins instead of dried cranberries.)
By the way, I also love the Palouse. I now live in the Southwest, but lived most of my life in CDA/Spokane and so loved driving through the small farming towns and wheat & canola fields of Palouse country.
Kara, all of this makes me so completely happy!! Thank you so much for your wonderful comment, I’m so pleased that the recipe turned out and that you will be sharing it as Christmas gifts! My favorite way to spread cheer is edible gifts, too! And finding another person who appreciates the Palouse just makes my heart sing. Happiest Holidays to you and yours!
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This is a lovely recipe, not too sweet, fantastic texture, looks and tastes great. It takes a long time to make this bread but worth it. I was a little confused when the recipe said to turn the oven on to 450 but didn’t say for how long, so I hope I interpreted your recipe right when the oven was preheated to 450, I did the egg wash then I put it in the oven and turned the oven down right away to 425 for 15 minutes, then the 375 for 30 minutes. Turned out beautiful.
★★★★★
Cindy, I am so pleased you liked the recipe! Thank you for the note and confusion about the turning the oven to 450 to preheat. I will rewrite that so it is more clear. 🙂 Much appreciated!!
My friend liked this bread so much she wants to make it now but wants to make baguettes instead of bread. Any idea how long they would need to cook?
★★★★★
Oh that’s a cool idea!! I’m not sure what the difference in baking times would be – I haven’t tried it myself, so I don’t know exactly. But I would start by taking maybe 10 minutes off the baking time, and adding a couple minutes as you go until it reaches the correct doneness?
Hi
Can you bake this in a round cast iron pot? If so what temperature etc ?
Thanks