a baking morning

The weather cannot make up it's mind.  We got just enough snow to cover the ground, and enough to cancel the county schools, but not enough to last.  It was all melted by mid morning.  I thought today would be a great day to get some baking done!

My mom gave me her old bread machine, and I have spent the past few days trying to find a recipe that looked yummy.  I found several!  It's always hard to choose a recipe when you have 3 or 4 that look delicious.

After 2 failed attempts at making this loaf, the third time finally worked!  (I think the first 2 loaves I tried to make I was using dead yeast).

Milk and Honey Bread

Ingredients:
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons honey
3 cups of bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Combine ingredients in bread machine (for mine, wet ingredients go first, then dry, with yeast going last).  Select setting and crust, and hit start.  Easy peasy!

*Some notes*
-I used bread flour this time, but all purpose flour would work well too.
-It is possible to make this bread by hand.  If you wanted to do that, dissolve the yeast in the liquid, add other wet ingredients, then dry ingredients.  Combine and knead the dough.  Let it rise in the bowl until doubled.  Punch the dough down, knead it a few more times, and move it a loaf pan.  Let it rise until doubled.  Then bake it at 350 for 30 ish minutes or until the crust is golden and sounds hollow.

Since my bread machine takes 3 hours to make bread, I had some time to kill before Jaden and I could eat it.  We decided to make cookies!

My house definitely smells like a bakery! =)