No-Knead Cranberry Walnut Bread

This artisan bread can be mixed, risen, and baked in less than 3 hours.

It’s a cozy time of year, so I wanted to give you a recipe to match. I love making bread, especially on a cold, crisp day, and filling the house with a delicious aroma as it bakes. This recipe only needs a few ingredients, but it’s packed with flavor and is so good with a nice lashing of butter (or maple butter if you want to use that too here!).

The process of kneading dough can be intimidating for a lot of people, and sometimes you’re just not in the mood for it. This recipe lets you get away without kneading it—instead, you’re just going to be pulling and stretching the dough a few times in the bowl to get that beautiful structure. This technique is quite simple, and isn’t labor-intensive, but comes in handy with a lot of other recipes too (like focaccia!), so once you get the hang of it, you’re gonna be making tons of bread in no time.

This no-knead bread is studded with tart cranberries and buttery walnuts for bursts of flavor throughout. Though you really could use any dried fruits you want, like dried blueberries, cherries, or raisins, and you can swap the nuts and use pecans or almond slices instead.

I chose to use instant yeast in this recipe because I really wanted to prioritize ease. The bread rises fast, so you can bake up an artisan loaf in just a few hours with little hands-on time. If you want to spread the work out or develop the flavor of the bread a bit more, you can do an overnight rise, where you’ll cover and refrigerate the dough for at least eight hours or up to 24. Then, you simply let it sit at room temperature and warm up for an hour and a half before baking it. If I prep this dough on a Friday night, then I can have an easy Saturday morning treat with basically no work, which I love!