No-Knead Rustic Cranberry Pecan Bread
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No patience for kneading? This rustic cranberry pecan bread is the easiest no-knead bread! With just a few ingredients, you can have this delicious, rustic loaf.
No-Knead Rustic Cranberry Pecan Bread
Ingredients
- 3 ½ cups all purpose flour (490 grams)
- 2 ¼ tsp instant yeast (7 grams)
- 1 tsp salt (6 grams)
- 1 ⅔ cups lukewarm water (380 grams)
- 1 cup dried cranberries (120 grams)
- ½ cup chopped pecans (57 grams)
Instructions
- Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and stir with a wooden spoon until the flour starts to clump together. Add in the cranberries and chopped pecans, and continue to stir until everything is mixed and you have a sticky, shaggy dough.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough sit for 18 (or at least 12) hours at room temperature.
- After the resting time, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Shape it into a round boule shape and lightly dust the top of the boule with flour. Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel. Let the dough rise for about 1 ½ hours until the dough has nearly doubled in size.
- When the dough has risen to this point, set your oven temperature to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and place an empty 6 qt covered dutch oven (or similar pot) into the oven while it preheats. Let the pot warm up for about 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, make a couple slashes on the top of the dough with a sharp knife. Carefully remove the hot dutch oven and place it on a cooling rack or trivet. As gently as possible, plop the risen boule into the hot Dutch oven. Place the top on the dutch oven.
- Return the dutch oven to the oven, and bake for 30 minutes covered. Then remove the top of the Dutch oven and continue baking for about 8-10 more minutes until the bread is golden brown and crusty, and baked on the inside.
- Once done baking, cool the bread on a rack, at least until it’s not piping hot anymore – I know warm bread is hard to resist! Enjoy warm or at room temperature.
- For leftover bread, you can store it in a container or bag at room temperature for a couple days. For longer storage, move it to the fridge. You can also freeze it!
No Knead Rustic Cranberry Pecan Bread
This recipe is inspired by this month’s Cozy Mystery Cooking Club book, Berry the Hatchet by Peg Cochran. This cozy mystery centers around a cranberry farm and lots of cranberry goodies!
So of course, our theme of the month is cranberries. I like to bake with cranberries so I had no shortage of ideas this time. But, I felt like bread and I did NOT feel like kneading said bread…and so, I can up with this no-knead rustic bread.
This bread is great because, well no kneading for one for those who hate it, but its also very simple to bring together and then most of the time it takes is hands off. It has a very long first rise time – 18 hours – which helps the gluten form instead of having to knead it.
Which means you can easily whip up the dough the day before you want to bake it, and then just let it sit until you are ready to bake. You should let it rest for at least 12 hours, but could go up to 24 hours of rise time if needed.
After that, it’s just a quick and easy shaping, a shorter second rise time, and then baking. Voila! You now have no-knead cranberry pecan bread.
Recipe Tips + Info
I haven’t tried it, but you could substitute the cranberries with raisins. You could also probably leave them out and just add some extra nuts for a rustic pecan bread.
Yes! You can leave them out if you want or need to.
Since this is a no-knead bread recipe, the long first rise takes the place of kneading by letting the gluten strands form over time. It’s important to let the dough rise for at least 12 hours, but preferably 18 (or up to 24 if needed) at room temperature so you have a risen bread loaf instead of a flat one! Then there is the second rise, which is about 2 hours. But this is all hands off time…there’s really only 30 minutes or so of hands on time.
Yes. The beauty of this bread is that you can quickly mix up the dough the day before, and then finish and bake it the next day. You could also fully make the bread ahead of time and then serve it later on. It will last a couple days at room temperature or you can put it in the fridge or freezer for longer storage.
xoxo
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