This bread recipe is inspired by cranberry orange quick bread, offering fruit flavors and aromas with less sweetness and more gluten-chew. The dough is lean — no butter or eggs — but I recommend spreading a hefty amount of butter on a toasted slice. Cream cheese or peanut butter are also good options. Given the choice between a quick bread and a yeast bread, I tend to prefer the latter. I find working with instant or active yeast almost as simple as using the chemical leaveners baking powder and baking soda, and I love the texture of bread-bread as opposed to cake-bread. I also enjoy the commercial yeast aroma even though I am mainly a devoted sourdough baker.
Pan size and recipe scaling
This recipe is scaled for a medium USA loaf pan, which is 9.5″ x 5.5″ x 2.75″. See the FAQ on recipe scaling if you plan to use a pan with different dimensions.
Converting the recipe to sourdough
This bread can be made with sourdough starter instead of yeast. See the FAQ about how to convert a recipe from yeast to sourdough and vice versa.
To score or not to score
If you want a scored crust, cut the dough twice: once before loading it into the oven and a second time 7-8 minutes into the bake to re-open the dough and allow for more expansion.
If you prefer a smooth crust, cover the dough with an aluminum foil tent or inverted same-size pan for the first twenty minutes of the bake. This traps steam, keeping the dough surface moist enough to expand without rupturing.
In both scenarios, you can brush the dough with milk or water before baking to add a little steam, and in the case of milk, more browning of the crust.
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- Scored
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- Final results with re-scoring after 7 minutes
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- Tented for 20 minutes of the bake
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- Smooth domed bread
Make sure to check out the larger Photo Gallery after the recipe for more images of this bread process.
Cranberry Orange Yeast Bread
This cranberry orange yeast bread has delicious fruit and yeast aromas and a light sweetness. Enjoy it plain, with cream cheese, or slathered in butter for a more decadent experience.
Total Time
1 hour, 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 520 grams bread flour (4 cups)
- 360-400 grams liquid: water and juice from one orange (1.5 – 1.7 cups)
- 27-40 grams sugar (2-3 Tbsp) *
- 10 grams salt (2 tsp)
- 7 grams instant yeast (2 tsp)
- 110 grams dried cranberries (1 cup)
- zest from one orange
Instructions
- In a 73°F kitchen, my dough needed 1.5 hours for the first rise, and 1 hour for the final proof. Your rise times may vary due to different dough and ambient temperatures. See the photo gallery for images of target expansion.
- Zest a thoroughly washed and dried orange, then squeeze the juice to be part of the liquid that goes into the dough.
- Holding back the dried cranberries and some of liquid, combine the ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the reserved water-juice mix as needed to make a dough that feels a little too sticky to knead by hand. Some of the excess moisture will be absorbed by the cranberries.
- Add the dried cranberries to the dough, working them into the dough with your hands.
- Cover the dough and let it double in size.
- Dust a work surface with flour and pre-shape the dough into a ball. This will strengthen the gluten and make the final loaf shape more uniform. Cover and let the dough rest about 15 minutes.
- Flatten the dough into an oval/rectangle, making sure the widest part is still shorter than the length of the loaf pan.
- Roll the dough into a tube and place it seam side down in a greased or non-stick loaf pan. This recipe is scaled for the medium USA pan, which is 9 x 5 x 2.75 inches. Here is an FAQ on how to scale recipes if your pan is a different size.
- Cover loosely and allow the dough to rise again until it crests over the edge of the pan.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- For a scored crust, cut the dough and then brush the dough with water or milk. Re-score the dough about 7 minutes into the bake to unseal the cut and encourage more oven spring. For a smooth crust, brush the dough with water or milk, don’t score and cover the pan with an aluminum foil tent or another pan of the same size. Leave this on for the first twenty minutes of the bake so the crust stays moist and expands without rupturing.
- Bake for a total of 50-55 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread is over 190°F.
- Let the bread cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes and then remove it from the pan to continue cooling.
- Store in a closed container, bag, or beeswax wrap.
Notes
* The sugar is given as a range because I tested both amounts and enjoyed both outcomes. Neither is wildly sweet, but you should use the smaller amount if you want a more subtle sweetness and/or don’t plan to pair it with a fat like butter, cream cheese, or peanut butter.
