Cinnamon Molasses Sugar Cookie Bread

Happy Sunday! Whoever invented the bread machine is a genius. Throw in a few ingredients, turn it on, three hours later, delicious homemade bread. I like to experiment with adding in different ingredients to basic bread machine recipes. Today I had a few left over molasses cookies, so I made my favorite cinnamon sugar bread recipe and added the crumbled cookies in after the last knead cycle. The bread came out moist, fragrent, with crunchy little pieces of cookie scattered throughout. It reminded me of a big, soft, molasses sugar cookie! AND it was absolutely fabulous the next day, cut thick and made into french toast. So decadent! Try this one out!

Cinnamon Mollasses Sugar Cookie Bread

adapted from food.com recipe

Ingredients

1 cup milk

1/4 cup butter or 1/4 cup margarine, softened

1 egg

3 cups bread flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons yeast

4-5 molasses cookies, crumbled

Directions

Place ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order suggested by the manufacturer. Usually, liquids first, then dry ingredients and last yeast. Start the machine using the sweet bread setting if your machine has one, or the white bread setting.

After the first kneading cycle, sprinkle cookies onto dough (you could just do this at some point during the knead cycle, as long as the cookies get incorporated into the dough, you should be good to go!) When the bread is done, remove from the machine and let sit on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. If it sticks, just loosen the sides with a plastic spatula and it should slip out easily. This makes a 1 1/2 pound loaf that rose really nicely.

Hint: If after about 10 minutes into the kneading cycle, the bread seems very sticky, add a bit more flour until it acheives the desired consistency (moist but not sticky). I had to add quite a bit of extra flour but the loaf came out great!

If you don't have a bread machine the King Arthur Flour website has great tips on making bread machine recipes by hand.

slather on some butter, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and you have a pretty awesome piece of toast! Enjoy,

Sweet Cherry Pie Bread

Happy Fourth of July Weekend! Can I just say, I LOVE my bread machine! I have been making a different kind of bread pretty much every day and it's so easy! I have been sticking to the more basic recipes since my first loaf didn't turn out so well. When I came across the recipe for Apple Pie Bread in one of my bread machine cook books, I decided it was time for me to go outside the basic bread box and try something new. I didn't have any apple pie filling or apple juice but I did have some low sugar cherry pie filling so I decided to try it out using some substitutions. The bread does not rise much and the loaf is heavier than other breads but the taste is out of this world! I sliced it warm and topped it with Mom's homemade strawberry jam. It was sooo good, a great treat to make ahead and munch while you are working on your Fourth of July barbecue!

Sweet Cherry Pie Bread

Recipe for 1 pound loaf

Ingredients

1 tsp active dry yeast

5 - 6 tbsp sugar

2 1/4 cups bread flour

4 tsp dry milk

1/2 cup cherry pie filling

1/2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp butter

3 oz juice - I didn't have any juice so I mixed two tblsp syrup (from the pie filling) with about 1 tbsp sugar and then added warm water to equal 3 oz.

Add wet ingredients to bread machine pan. Add dry ingredients to pan. Set bread machine on "sweet" setting with light crust. After the first rise cycle open bread machine and check dough. If it is sticking to the sides of the pans and appears too wet, add more flour and sugar until it forms a ball that does not stick to the sides of the pan. Close bread machine, let it do it's job, and enjoy!