The Quest for dried cherries and white chocolate bread
My favorite bread at Great Harvest Bakery is the white chocolate cherry. It's one of those breads that taste best the day it is baked; when it's still slightly warm, soft, and the white chocolate chips are present, but softened, and the cherries are chewy and just the right bit of tart. Sigh.
It's a bread that I want to master and put my own particular stamp on. A couple of years ago I tried adding dried cherries and white chocolate chips to a basic white bread that I had made several times. It was okay but nothing worth repeating. A few blogs back I tried Paul Hollywood's version to a delicious, but not perfect, conclusion.
It occurred to me that I had not yet tried the "sweet" setting on my bread maker. I decided to try the Cranberry Orange Pecan recipe included in the manual. Except I didn't use cranberry. Or orange. Or pecan.
I decided to sub cherries for cranberries. It makes sense; they are both dried fruit, slightly tart, approximately the same size. I subbed white chocolate chips for the pecans...yeah, we're starting to stray a bit. Now technically I had orange juice and orange zest but I didn't think orange would go with my cherry/white chocolate combo. Soooo, I used more water to replace the OJ and almond extract in place of the zest. Heck, if I am going to deviate, I will do it BIG time! So here's the cast. With stand-ins.
The thing with bread machines is, you need to add ingredients in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Sometimes I don't agree but I already subbed almond extract for orange zest so I thought maybe I should just behave at this point. Water, salt, sugar and nonfat dry milk were added first.
A couple of tablespoons of butter cut into small chunks.
I had run out of bread flour, as has most of the state of Hawai'i, so I used all-purpose flour.
But to bolster the A-P flour, I added some of this (you will remember VWG from my foray into low-carb bread). The vital wheat gluten bolsters the protein and hopefully will help the bread to rise--especially since it's going to have a couple of heavy ingredients weighing it down.
This should probably have gone in at the beginning with the water. I added it to the side of the flour so it wouldn't interfere with the yeast.
In went the yeast and the whole shebang was put into the machine. The sweet setting is #5, it's a two-pound loaf and a light crust was recommended.
I managed to find dried cherries without added sugar but most dried fruit have a little oil added to prevent them from sticking together. I don't think it works. When was the last time you saw prunes or apricots socially distancing? The oil doesn't help. Just leave them naked! Anyway, whether you are making cake or bread, dredging your fruit with a little flour will keep them from dropping down to the bottom.
I didn't think the chips needed much help but I gave them a light sprinkle as well.
Technically, you aren't supposed to open the lid when the machine is going but since I had never made this bread before, I wanted to give the dough a poke to see what the texture was like. A bit heavy but it felt okay.
Around 20 minutes in, the machine beeped. That was my signal to add the filling.
It's hard to see but after a minute, the filling had been incorporated except every now and again, a cherry would pop to the surface and get spat out. Then it would get incorporated again...
The loaf had a nice shape but the light color on the top concerned me. I hoped it was just because I usually use the medium crust setting so this looked odd by comparison.
Unfortunately, my concern was confirmed. About 1/4" of the very top was not thoroughly cooked. It was holding together but it could easily be compressed back. I ended up cutting off the top and slicing the rest.
The texture was a bit heavy but it wasn't dense. There was no sign of the white chocolate chips; they must have melted and completely merged with the bread. Though I liked the bread, I was disappointed that I still hadn't found "the" white chocolate cherry bread recipe. My guys didn't care though; they enjoyed the bread and though it isn't yet dinnertime, there are only two slices left. Thick slices, but still. Three turtles from me and the Quest continues!
It's a bread that I want to master and put my own particular stamp on. A couple of years ago I tried adding dried cherries and white chocolate chips to a basic white bread that I had made several times. It was okay but nothing worth repeating. A few blogs back I tried Paul Hollywood's version to a delicious, but not perfect, conclusion.
It occurred to me that I had not yet tried the "sweet" setting on my bread maker. I decided to try the Cranberry Orange Pecan recipe included in the manual. Except I didn't use cranberry. Or orange. Or pecan.
I decided to sub cherries for cranberries. It makes sense; they are both dried fruit, slightly tart, approximately the same size. I subbed white chocolate chips for the pecans...yeah, we're starting to stray a bit. Now technically I had orange juice and orange zest but I didn't think orange would go with my cherry/white chocolate combo. Soooo, I used more water to replace the OJ and almond extract in place of the zest. Heck, if I am going to deviate, I will do it BIG time! So here's the cast. With stand-ins.
The thing with bread machines is, you need to add ingredients in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Sometimes I don't agree but I already subbed almond extract for orange zest so I thought maybe I should just behave at this point. Water, salt, sugar and nonfat dry milk were added first.
A couple of tablespoons of butter cut into small chunks.
I had run out of bread flour, as has most of the state of Hawai'i, so I used all-purpose flour.
But to bolster the A-P flour, I added some of this (you will remember VWG from my foray into low-carb bread). The vital wheat gluten bolsters the protein and hopefully will help the bread to rise--especially since it's going to have a couple of heavy ingredients weighing it down.
This should probably have gone in at the beginning with the water. I added it to the side of the flour so it wouldn't interfere with the yeast.
In went the yeast and the whole shebang was put into the machine. The sweet setting is #5, it's a two-pound loaf and a light crust was recommended.
I managed to find dried cherries without added sugar but most dried fruit have a little oil added to prevent them from sticking together. I don't think it works. When was the last time you saw prunes or apricots socially distancing? The oil doesn't help. Just leave them naked! Anyway, whether you are making cake or bread, dredging your fruit with a little flour will keep them from dropping down to the bottom.
I didn't think the chips needed much help but I gave them a light sprinkle as well.
Technically, you aren't supposed to open the lid when the machine is going but since I had never made this bread before, I wanted to give the dough a poke to see what the texture was like. A bit heavy but it felt okay.
Around 20 minutes in, the machine beeped. That was my signal to add the filling.
It's hard to see but after a minute, the filling had been incorporated except every now and again, a cherry would pop to the surface and get spat out. Then it would get incorporated again...
The loaf had a nice shape but the light color on the top concerned me. I hoped it was just because I usually use the medium crust setting so this looked odd by comparison.
Unfortunately, my concern was confirmed. About 1/4" of the very top was not thoroughly cooked. It was holding together but it could easily be compressed back. I ended up cutting off the top and slicing the rest.
The texture was a bit heavy but it wasn't dense. There was no sign of the white chocolate chips; they must have melted and completely merged with the bread. Though I liked the bread, I was disappointed that I still hadn't found "the" white chocolate cherry bread recipe. My guys didn't care though; they enjoyed the bread and though it isn't yet dinnertime, there are only two slices left. Thick slices, but still. Three turtles from me and the Quest continues!
Here is the recipe:
Courtesy of Hamilton Beach
Cranberry Orange Pecan for 2-lb. loaf
Add ingredients in this order:
1 c. water
1/2 c. orange juice (I omitted the OJ and added 1/2 c. water)
2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. sugar
2-1/2 T. nonfat dry milk
2-1/2 T. butter, cut into small pieces
4 c. bread flour
2-1/2 tsp. orange zest (I omitted the zest and added about 2 tsp. of almond extract)
2-1/2 tsp. dry yeast
1/2 c. dried cranberries (I omitted the cranberries and added dried cherries)
1/2 c. chopped pecans (I omitted the pecans and added white chocolate chips)
Sprinkle cranberries and pecans with about 1 tsp. of flour. When machine beeps 10 times, add these ingredients.
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