Our Daily Bread

For the last couple of years I've been making bread regularly. It's gotten to the point where, except for sour dough bread, my kids prefer homemade bread to store bought. That's mostly ok. Sure, it's a pain to hear them complain if I need to serve store bread, but when we eat homemade I know exactly what's in the bread, and more importantly what's not. Here's the recipe I fall back on for our every day bread.

Maple buttermilk Bread
(modified from Bread Machine Baking, by Lora Brody and Millie Apter)

1 Tbsp butter or oil
3 Tbsp real maple syrup or honey
1 cup buttermilk or 1 cup water plus 4 Tbsp powdered buttermilk
3 Tbsp gluten
3 cups whole white wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast

Mix and knead in bread machine dough cycle or by hand
Let rise in loaf pan on 2nd rising
Bake 350 F for ~25 min.


Notes:

I didn't put in rise times because around here that varies with the house temperature and me remembering I was making bread. Whole wheat generally takes longer to rise than refined flour, and a dry loaf can take a bit more time than a wetter loaf. I'd give at least 2 hours to each rising.

Yes. I'm still making my own buttermilk and sour cream. It's that easy, and that good.

I've used the powered buttermilk in this and it turns out fine.

I've used regular whole wheat flour, and white flour in this. They're both fine, although regular white flour is a bit pasty after you get used to whole wheat.

This is a nice dough to use to make cinnamon raisin bread, or pecan rolls, or monkey bread.