For Christmas I received a bread maker–super exciting!! I have tried baking bread here at over 6,000 feet before by band and baking it in the oven but it just never comes out right. Either it is too dense or it doesn’t rise very much. So now that I had the bread maker I could not wait to see if finally I could make some homemade bread.

This recipe looked easy enough and sounded light and delicious so I slowly added the dry ingredients, then the wet and finally the yeast, closed the machine and hoped for the best. While my machine has an Express setting that says it gives you a loaf of bread in 58 minutes (crazy!) I decided to stick to the normal setting and see if that worked. I kept peeking in the little window on top and much to my surprise about 2 hours in I saw some beautifully risen dough!

The timer went off at 3 hours and just in time for Downton Abbey to start. My friend/fellow Downton Abbey fanatic, Darcy, and I carefully sliced the first pieces of the gorgeously tan-crusted loaf. The bread was light, it was fluffy and it was a normal loaf size meaning it had risen perfectly.  The loaf was gone within a couple days being used for toast, snacking on plain, and sandwiches. Delicious and now I will have to decide which kind of bread to make next…

Milk and Honey Bread

By Diana Rattray

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 1 Tbsp. milk
• 3 Tbsp. honey
• 3 Tbsp. melted butter
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (1 Rapid-Rise packet)

Directions

1. Pour the milk, honey, and melted butter into the bottom of the bread machine pan. Carefully add the flour and salt so the liquid remains underneath. Make a small circular indent in the top of the flour and pour in the yeast making sure never to allow it to touch liquid in the pan.

2. Put the pan back into your bread maker and close the lid. Use the basic and medium crust settings and bake according to your bread maker manufacturer’s recommendations (usually 3 hours).