Monday, January 02, 2012

My favorite bread machine bread recipe


Before I forget... I was asked to share my favorite bread machine bread recipe.  It has been on my recipe blog for years but I added this picture today.  I thought I'd post it here so the requester will see it right away.  :)

This has been my "go to" bread recipe since I received my bread machine as a Christmas present (a very long time ago). I tweak the ingredients for whom I'm making the bread and what I'm going to use it for. If it is for my husband (who slices the bread and freezes it, getting out only enough for breakfast each day), I make it 100% freshly ground whole wheat.

My son and I like it best half-whole wheat and half-King Arthur bread flour. For cinnamon rolls, I like to make it with three cups bread flour and one cup whole wheat flour. (I rarely make it with all white flour.)

If I'm using it to make a sweeter, richer, dough (for cinnamon rolls or to make dinner rolls), I use milk instead of water and use butter instead of oil. When I do this, I warm the milk up and then add the butter and honey to the warm milk to mix well.

As with any bread machine recipe, all ingredients should at least be room temperature (if not warmed a bit in the Winter).

This makes one loaf of bread or six to ten smallish cinnamon rolls.

Whole Wheat Honey Bread (also cinnamon rolls)*

1 Cup and 2 T. water (just slightly above the 1 C. line)
4 Cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3 T. honey (or brown sugar)
2 T. shortening (I use mild olive oil or butter)
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Place water, salt, honey and shortening in machine pan. Add flour and then sprinkle the yeast on top.

Put on dough cycle, will take approx. 1 ½ hours until finished. Take out of bread machine, mold into a loaf, put in greased loaf pan. Let rise until slightly over the top of the loaf pan, slash a few times on top.  

Bake 30-35 min. at 350 degrees.

*Your bread machine may require a different order of ingredients but this seems to be the order used with most machines.  If using butter, make certain it is room temperature.  

If making cinnamon rolls

Roll out into a rectangle, butter the dough (except about an inch at the bottom so it seals well), sprinkle with cinnamon, sprinkle with brown sugar, pat the sugar into the dough, roll up, cut into about one inch slices. 

Place slices in two 9" cake pans (or whatever you have, I've also put them all in a 9 x 13 dish) and let rise about 30 min..longer in cold weather.

Place into preheated 350 degree oven and bake about twelve minutes or until golden on top. Let cool a bit and frost with frosting: 

Frosting for cinnamon rolls:  1/4th cup (one-half of a stick) butter-room temp mixed with 3 cups confectioners sugar. Add just enough milk until you get the consistency you like (I like mine thinner then I'd use to frost a cake but not so thin it becomes a glaze).

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looks good. Do you have a version of that that doesn't require a bread machine?

Anonymous said...

"""""It looks good. Do you have a version of that that doesn't require a bread machine?""""

I was going ot ask the same thing.

matty said...

Yummers! What kind of bread machine do you have that you get such a pretty loaf? The only one I had years ago made a column. I just didn't like how it looked --- and there wasn't enough crust! :O

Sounds delicious!

Vee said...

Oh a picture is worth so much. I've never "found" this on your recipe blog. I have been quite disappointed with my bread machine so I will give this recipe a go and see what I think. I have no whole wheat flour, but I do have King Arthur bread flour.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this recipe. My husband and I were just talking about buying a bread machine. I kind of go back and forth with the idea. Which one do you have? Or could you recommend one?
Warmly,
Janet

Heather @ Simple Wives said...

Mmm...I can almost smell fresh baked bread in the air. Looks scrumptious!

Anonymous said...

Brenda, have you ever heard of "hard white" wheat kernels? Often, the "hard red" wheat makes a loaf heavier and more "wheaty" tasting, so one tends to lighten it up with white bread flour. This was true with me when I first started milling grain and baking my own bread. When I discovered hard white wheat, it made all the difference! I find that I can mill it "fine" (I have a Nutrimill) and use ALL freshly milled flour in the dough and not have it be heavy or at all! This way, you are getting more of the nutrients and fiber in your loaf (the reason you are milling your own flour to begin with!) When there are family members who claim to not like whole wheat, usually they can be sold easily on baked goods that contain all hard white wheat flour. (One type is called Prairie Gold, but you can find many sources online for wheat kernels like www.pleasanthillgrain.com.)

Anonymous said...

I tried this bread today and it was delicious. I love that it is cooked in a loaf pan--one of the things I dislike about a bread machine is the hole in the bottom of the loaf. This takes care of that. Thank you.
Martha Ellen

Heather L. said...

I've gotten away from the bread machine because making one loaf (of dough) doesn't cut it for 7. But now that 2 of us are GF maybe it would be nice for the rest of the family to have a loaf once in awhile. I feel all my baking energy is spent making GF bread. I will try your recipe for the others.

cody said...

Great recipe. This was my first bread and it was very easy and delicious