Rosemary and Apricot French Loaf
This is a sweet bread that seems quite fancy and is actually not much more work than a simple French loaf. I went to an Irish bakery once and they had apricot bread. In my imagination, this is the recipe I was thinking of so I made this up when the Irish bakery didn't read my mind.
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Recipe Summary
Ingredients
Directions
Cook's Notes:
Add ingredients according to individual machine instructions. The cook time is how long it takes my machine to run that cycle.
Interesting variations: Take out the fruit. It's a nice rosemary bread. Add more apricots, 1/4 cup walnuts, 6 prunes, and 4 dates!? Yes. That's very fancy. It comes out good, but transitions from a bread to dessert.
Alcoholic, flat apple cider at room temperature can be substituted for water. It will be a little sour, but just as tender. If using this, I recommend reducing sugar to 1 tablespoon.
You can use raisins instead of apricots; sweeter, but more mild taste. You can also use dried cherries; I'm an apricot enthusiast, but people say it was good. Chopping the apricots into really tiny bits and then adding them makes a delicious bread, with a strong apricot flavor. I have used 10 minced apricots, and 10 quartered apricots.