This Apricot Cherry Breakfast Bread is a sweet, light, tender bread studded with dried apricots and tart cherries. Serve it for breakfast slathered with your favorite jam.

This is the first of eight recipes I’ll be creating for Red Star Yeast this year using their terrific yeast. I’ll post a new recipe on the first Monday of the month for the next eight months. So if you’re a bread lover like me, I hope this is good news. I know my family and I are looking forward to eating lots more homemade breads, sweet treats, and more.

Last month while I was cruising the Caribbean on the Click Retreat, there was a braided bread on the buffet each morning. It had little pieces of apricot and cranberies in it and little pieces of pearl sugar on top. I couldn’t resist adding a slice to my plate every morning.

This bread is a challah bread with dried fruit added to the dough and then sprinkled with pearl sugar. I started with the Challah recipe on the Red Star Yeast website and adapted it to recreate the breakfast bread I had on the cruise.

I did a simple two strand braid for this bread, but you could also do a three strand, or even a four strand braid. A few years ago I posted a Whole Wheat Challah bread recipe that gives directions for braiding a four strand braid.

The breakfast bread on the ship didn’t have as much dried fruit, but I thought a little more would be nice. It also had dried cranberries instead of dried cherries, but when I noticed some dried cherries in the pantry, I couldn’t resist using them instead.

This bread is great without or without jam. I think it would also make a fabulous French toast too. I plan to try that this weekend.

My daughter was happy I was teaming up with Red Star Yeast again. She said my Red Star Yeast recipes are some of her favorites. I hope they are some of your favorites too.

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Cranberry Apricot Breakfast Bread

Cook Time20

Total Time20

Course: Breads

Keyword: baking, Breakfast, yeast bread

Servings: loaf

Author: Barbara Schieving

Ingredients

3 ½ cups bread flour
2 ¼ teaspoon 1 package Red Star Active Dry Yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup water 120°
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs room temperature
2 tablespoons dried apricots diced
2 tablespoons dried cherries diced
1 egg
1 tablespoon of water
1 tablespoon pearl sugar

Instructions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine 2 ½ cups flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Add warm water and oil to flour mixture. Add eggs; beat 1 minute at medium speed. Switch to the dough hook and gradually mix in remaining flour to make a smooth dough, add more or less flour as necessary. Add dried fruit. Knead for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.
Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and turn to grease top. Cover; let rise until dough doubles in size and tests ripe.
Punch down dough. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Pat into a 12 x 6-inch rectangle. Cut into two 3 x 12-inch piece. Shape each piece into a rope. Twist the ropes together. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Cover; let rise until indentation remains after touching.
Create egg wash by beating together 1 egg and water. Coat the top of the loaf with egg wash and sprinkle with pearl sugar.
Bake in preheated 400° oven 15 to 20 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Red Star Yeast, but all opinions expressed are always my own. You can also find Red Star Yeast on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

More recipes I created for Red Star Yeast that you might like: