Fruit Loaf With Prunes, Walnuts And Honey
A plaited wholemeal fruit loaf sweetened with honey and filled with prunes and walnuts. The recipe is made with yeast and baked in a hot oven. Delicious and nutritious, it’s lovely spread with butter and fabulous toasted. Perfect for both breakfast and afternoon tea and it makes a great festive cheese board accompaniment too.
Fruit loaves are wonderful things and I don’t make them nearly enough. If you’re used to making bread, they’re easy peasy and even if you’re not, you won’t find them difficult. Why not give this one a go?
Wholemeal Prune & Walnut Fruit Loaf
My fruit loaf is made with wholemeal flour. That goes without saying. But unusually for me I’ve not used spelt flour in this recipe, just strong wholemeal flour. It works really well.
You can use a stand mixer to make this fruit loaf or mix and knead by hand if you prefer. You can also make this bread as a straightforward loaf rather than a plaited one. You’ll need a greased nine hundred gram (one pound) bread tin. However plaiting does make it look more interesting and it takes very little time to do.
Prunes give this fruit loaf a lovely flavour and the walnuts some contrasting crunch. If you don’t have any prunes to hand though, swap them for dried apricots or even raisins.
Assuming you don’t eat it straight away, the bread lasts for approximately five days at room temperature. It’s best toasted after day three though. Having said that, if it’s exceptionally hot and humid, eat it within three days or freeze it. Store in a plastic bag to stop the fruit loaf drying out.
Vegan Fruit Loaf
It’s quite easy to make this fruit loaf vegan. Simply swap the milk for a creamy plant based milk and the honey for maple syrup, date syrup or agave nectar.
Fruit Loaf: Step-By-Step
The fruit loaf itself is easy to make and doesn’t require a lot of hands on time. However, you will need time to activate the yeast and for the bread to rise.
Step 1. Activate Yeast
Place the yeast in a large mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, if using.
Warm the milk in a pan over a low heat until it’s tepid. Pour it onto the yeast and whisk until the yeast is dissolved.
Add one teaspoon of the honey and whisk again.
Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave for fifteen minutes. By this time the top should be frothy.
Step 2. Toast Walnuts
Meanwhile toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan over a moderate heat for five minutes or so. Give the pan an occasional shake and take off the heat as soon as the walnuts have gone slightly golden.
Step 3. Knead Dough
Add the remaining honey, the flour and salt to the yeast leaven. Mix until everything is thoroughly combined. I use my stand mixer for this.
If the mixture is a bit stiff, add another tablespoon or two of milk, a little at a time, until you get a soft, but not particularly sticky consistency.
Either turn out onto a work surface and knead well for ten minutes or knead for five minutes in a stand mixer. If kneading by hand, you shouldn’t need to flour your work surface. If you find the dough is sticking too much, however, oil the surface rather than use flour.
I used to always knead by hand, but these days it hurts my wrists. So I use my stand mixer and do a bit of light hand kneading at the end.
Step 4. Add Prunes And Walnuts
Roughly chop the walnuts and either snip the prunes with a pair of scissors into small pieces or roughly chop them with a knife.
Add to the dough and knead for a further minute until everything is thoroughly combined and the dough looks slightly glossy.
Step 5. Plait Dough
Divide the dough into three equal pieces and roll each one into a long fat sausage shape measuring around 30 cm (12 inches).
Pinch the ends of the three strands together, then plait them, pinching them together at the other end. Tuck both ends under to create a neat (ish) loaf.
Step 6. Prove Bread
Place on a lightly oiled baking tray, cover with a large plastic bag and leave to rise for about an hour or until nearly doubled in size. How long it takes depends on room temperature, quality of the flour and how active the yeast is.
When the bread is rising well, preheat the oven to 200℃ (180℃ fan, 400℉, Gas 6).
As soon as the loaf is well risen, brush the top and sides with milk.
Step 7. Bake Bread
Bake on the middle shelf of your oven for about thirty minutes or until the loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the underside.
Transfer the loaf to a wire rack to cool. Let it cool completely before slicing.
Top Tips
To save a bit of energy, don’t turn the oven on until you place the bread in it. Baking from a cold oven only takes about five minutes longer, but you don’t have to wait fifteen to twenty minutes for it to heat up. I always bake my bread this way now.
Half fill a tin of water and place on the bottom shelf of the oven at the same time you put the bread in to bake. The steam will help the bread to rise and stay soft.
How To Serve Fruit Loaf?
Fruit loaf is so good it needs nothing more than a bit of butter. Just slice it up and spread with softened butter. Homemade butter is even better. It’s delicious warm and it makes excellent toast too. Great for breakfast or with a cup of tea in the afternoon.
Other Sweet Yeast Bread Recipes You Might Like
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this prune and walnut wholemeal fruit loaf, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more yeasted recipes or prune recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Prune & Walnut Fruit Loaf
Prune And Walnut Fruit Loaf
Ingredients
- 15 g dried active yeast (not fast-action yeast)
- 300 ml milk + extra for brushing
- 2 tbsp honey
- 500 g strong wholemeal flour
- 1 ½ tsp sea salt
- 100 g soft prunes
- 75 g walnuts
Instructions
- Place the yeast in a large mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, if using.15 g dried active yeast
- Warm the milk in a pan over a low heat until it’s tepid. Pour it onto the yeast and whisk until the yeast is dissolved.300 ml milk
- Add one teaspoon of the honey and whisk again.
- Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave for fifteen minutes to froth.
- Meanwhile toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan over a moderate heat for five minutes or so.75 g walnuts
- Add the remaining honey, flour and salt and mix until everything is combined. I use my stand mixer for this. If the mixture is a bit stiff, add another tbsp or two of milk, a little at a time, until you get a soft, but not particularly sticky consistency.2 tbsp honey, 500 g strong wholemeal flour, 1 ½ tsp sea salt
- Either turn out onto a work surface and knead well for ten minutes or knead for five minutes in a stand mixer. If kneading by hand, you shouldn’t need to flour your work surface. If you find the dough is sticking too much, however, oil the surface rather than using flour.
- Roughly chop the walnuts and either snip the prunes with a pair of scissors into small pieces or chop them with a knife.100 g soft prunes
- Add to the dough and knead for a further minute until everything is thoroughly combined.
- Divide the dough into three equal pieces and roll each one into a long fat sausage shape measuring around 30 cm (12 inches).
- Pinch the ends of the three strands together, then plait them, pinching them together at the end. Tuck both ends under to create a neat (ish) loaf.
- Place on a lightly oiled baking tray, cover with a large plastic bag and leave to rise for about an hour or until nearly doubled in size. Time taken will depend on room temperature and how active the yeast is.
- When the bread is rising well, preheat the oven to 200℃ (180℃ fan, 400℉, Gas 6).
- As soon as the loaf is well risen, brush the top and sides with milk.
- Bake on the middle shelf for about thirty minutes or until the loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the underside.
- Transfer the loaf to a wire rack and slice when cool.
Notes
Top Tip
Half fill a tin of water and place on the bottom shelf of the oven at the same time you put the bread in to bake. The steam will help the bread to rise and stay soft.Vegan Fruit Loaf
It’s quite easy to make this fruit loaf vegan. Simply swap the milk for a creamy plant based milk and the honey for maple syrup, date syrup or agave nectar.Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They’re approximate and will depend on exact ingredients used.Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
I’m sharing this recipe for a plaited wholemeal prune and walnut fruit loaf with Glutarama for #CookBlogShare.
Why do you give ‘500 ml’ strong wholemeal flour’? ml is a liquid measure, please can you give a weight measure or should it be 500 g? Thank you. Looks great, can’t wait to give it a try.
Hi Tessa. It is indeed a typo and should be 500g. Thanks for pointing it out, will go and alter it right away.
there’s something the matter with this recipe – the dough is WAY too wet with 500 ml flour and 300ml milk. I’m still adding ww pastry flour, trying to rescue it. Put in a glug of fresh sourdough starter to try to get a more cohesive dough.
Hi Linda. Did you use wholemeal flour?
The loaf came out fantastically! My first time adding prunes to bread, and I think I’ll be using them more frequently!
Prunes are lovely to use, both in bread and cakes. They’re super healthy too.
This is such a good recipe! I used plant milk and agave instead of honey and it worked fabulously. Thanks so much for sharing!
Great Jacqui, glad to hear the vegan version works well too. Thanks for letting us know.
i love how you added prunes and walnuts to this fruit loaf. it is really tasty and perfect for the holidays!
Thanks Nancy. It’s a good autumnal loaf and as you say suitable for the festivities too.
What a lovely healthy loaf to make at home! I love that it’s both nutritious and so tasty!
I’m on a mission to show people that healthy food can be delicious as well as nutritious 😀
Absolutely delicious and so healthy!
Thank you Jenn, so glad you like the fruit bread.
Yum, your fruit loaf looks so good, I could eat some right now. I love the idea of plaiting it. I’ve only ever made sourdough fruit loaves but this looks a lot quicker. This could entice me back into bread making, thanks Choclette
Thanks Pauline. I’ve made fruit and nut sourdoughs before too, but this gives quite a different result – softer.
Haha, I had to type what I literally just said out loud when I found this recipe ‘corrr, yes please!’ This sounds awesome and I need to make it as soon as possible. I do have all the ingredients but will have a go at making it gluten free too.
Thanks Rebecca, that made me smile. Well of course you’ll make the bread gluten free. Hope it works out ok.
i love a fruit loaf, and i like the sound of walnuts in it. I am ambivalent about prunes but they go well in a cake I think.
If you’re not too keen on prunes, this loaf is a good one to have as they’re not overly obvious.
Such a nourishing and wholesome loaf!
angiesrecipes
Thanks Angie, it’s quite a simple one, but ever so good.