My favorite bread recipe…so far

I scored a fantastic little bread maker for $10.00 at a garage sale about a month ago. I am in hog heaven making bread! The hubby just rolls his eyes when I start pulling out ingredients… again. Over the last several weeks I am sure I have baked about a dozen different loaves and have even used it to make dough for things like rolls and…. DONUTS. They were fantastic, btw. Fried up hot with chocolate icing… YUM!

But, by far my favorite thing to make so far is a cinnamon-nut loaf with dried fruit added. Here is the recipe:

Bread flour 3C (14 3/4 oz)

Salt 1 1/2 tsp

Dry Milk 1 1/2 TBSP

Butter 1 1/2 TBSP

Brown Sugar 1 1/2 TBSP (I’ve also substituted Mollasses once)

Cinnamon 1 tsp

Nuts 3/18 C (I’ve made this with sliced almonds and also sunflower seeds since I’m not a fan of walnuts)

Water 1 1/4 C (10 fl. oz)

Dried fruit 3 oz (I am not a fan of raisins so I add dried blueberries and cherries to my loaf.)

Dry Yeast 1 tsp

My bread machine has a pod for the yeast that is supposed to drop automatically, but I learned early that it was malfunctioning. So now I put the “wet” ingredients in first, then the “dry.” I make a little nest in the top of the dry ingredients and put my yeast in there. Voila! This particular loaf I bake with the “sandwich” mode in my maker and it turns out lovely! I enjoy eating it slightly toasted with a bit of cream cheese for breakfast in the mornings.