Tired of eating Thanksgiving leftovers? I have one more tasty way to reinvent last week’s fixings – promise. If you have a cup of lingering cranberry sauce in the fridge, make this festive and impressive yeast bread.
Don’t have cranberry sauce on hand but want to get in on the deliciousness? Whip up a batch (it doesn’t take much time) or use the canned variety. The fruit filling adds a slight tang to the bread while white chocolate chips lend a subtle sweetness. For a stronger cocoa flavor, feel free to sub in semisweet or dark chocolate. And if you don’t mind a little mess, dust the finished loaf with powdered sugar for a snowy effect.
White Chocolate Cranberry Bread
Makes 1 9"x5" loaf
Ingredients
Dough:
- ⅓ cup vanilla soy milk (see notes)
- ¼ cup water
- 2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
- ¼ cup sugar, divided
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 2¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
Filling:
- 1 cup cranberry sauce, drained slightly so it's not too runny
- ½ cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
Make the dough:
- In a large bowl, heat soy milk and water until warm - about 30 seconds in the microwave should do. Add the yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar. Whisk together until thoroughly combined and let sit until foamy, about 10 minutes.
- Add the remaining sugar and the rest of the dough ingredients (butter through eggs) to the milk mixture, stirring everything until it comes together to form a shaggy ball. Then knead the dough by hand (or with a dough hook attachment) until it’s smooth and elastic - this will take about 10 minutes (or less if using a stand mixer). Shape dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let it rise until doubled in size, 1-2 hours.
Shape and bake the loaf:
- Grease a 9"x5" loaf pan.
- After the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll out dough to a 16"x12" rectangle.
- Spread the cranberry sauce over the dough in an even layer, leaving a 1" border around the edges. Sprinkle the white chocolate chips over the cranberry sauce. Roll the dough up lengthwise into a long log and pinch seam to seal.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the log in half lengthwise leaving 1 inch of the end uncut. Starting at the uncut end, braid the two pieces by carefully lifting the left strand over the right strand, repeating this motion until you reach the bottom of the dough. Carefully transfer the braided dough to the prepared pan.
- Cover loaf with a clean kitchen towel and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- About 15 minutes before dough has finished rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes until golden brown. If the top of the loaf gets too brown before it is done baking, cover loosely with foil.
- Remove pan from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Then turn out bread onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
Notes
If you prefer, you can substitute regular milk + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
YES! I guessed that these would be the ingredients to making this beauty! Can’t wait to try it!
Hooray MyThy – enjoy!
This looks gorgeous! I want everything with cranberries at the moment 🙂
Thanks so much, Thea!
Made a couple last year and added orange marmalade with the cranberries and it was absolutely amazing. I’ve already been asked to make more! Hands down the best.
The addition of orange marmalade sounds delicious! So glad you – and others – enjoyed it, Sandy!
Just finished 2 more with dried cranberries as well. Thank you for the recipe!!!