Recipe Resort: Bread-Maker's Bread

OK, so I have a slight confession to make before I start this post. I have a little cheat when I make bread, and that is that I use a bread-maker. This means that you may need to adjust the recipe below for your own bread-maker and you'd certainly need to adjust them for baking in the oven.

I started baking a few months ago, after my Dad found that he was often too busy to use his bread-maker himself. I just love the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house, and nothing can beat it for freshness. So, I thought I'd have a go myself. Now I make one or two loaves of bread most weeks, and love experimenting with new recipes. When I start a new recipe it often takes a while to get the adjustments right (you have to take account humidity, temperature, freshness of yeast and adapt for the machine), but the recipes that I know come out right most of the time. I'm going to share my favourite with you (including exactly which makes of ingredients I use- I think this is important), and then let you know about some bread-mixes that I also feel work well. I'd like to point out that I'm not sponsored by any of these makes, just honestly telling you which ones I've found to work well so far.


Wholewheat Seeded Bread (lactose free)
Put the following ingredients into your bread-maker in the order stated. This makes a 2lb loaf and works well in our Morphy Richards breadmaker.

• 5/8 cup of warm water
• 1 cup So Good soya life soya milk
• 3 tbsp sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp light brown sugar
• 4 cup Hovis Strong Wholemeal Bread Flour
• 1 packet of Allinson's Easy Bake Yeast (7g)
• 2x crushed Vitamin C tablets (120mg in total)

The following should be placed in the fruit and nut dispenser, or added when the beeper sounds:

• 4tsp sesame seeds

Use setting 2 Wholemeal, or equivilant setting.



My favourite bread mixes:

• Wright's Mixed Grain (just add water)
• Apple and Sultana Flour (I get mine frm Q Gardens Fam Shop, but can't remember the make- sorry). This is used as on the packet, and seems to work quite fine of th 2lb loaf setting.

Over to you:  

What sort of bread do you enjoy eating / cooking?

Do you have any good bread recipes that you'd like to share with us?

Tomorrow, you can pop back here to get another 'suggested activity', or join us over at 'The Story Factory Writing Zone' for an afternoon interview with author Joanne Harris.