How to make Brown Bread, cinnamon/Raisin Bread and Cheese Loafs

Here are a few changes you may want to make to the basic White Bread recipe.

Brown Bread. Use Whole Wheat Flour; or 1/2 white, 1/2 brown for a medium loaf.

Make it faster. We want you to try the "leave it on the counter until you see something growing" method FIRST. This way we know you are going to get something edible.

To speed up the first step take the liquids and heat in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Add sugar, salt, oil and mix with a wooden or plastic spoon until dissolved completely. Add yeast and cover. You should be able to add the flour after about 10 minutes and it produces approximately the same results. By warming (but not boiling) the liquid, then stirring in the other ingredients we can be sure that the liquid is warm and not hot. This allows the yeast to flourish immediately not organically.

To speed up the rising make sure that the bread is in a warm, moist place. A gas oven is ideal; simply put a metal pot with some water and leave the bread in the cool oven. The pilot light will keep it at a nice 80 degrees and speed up the process. If you are cooking a meal while making bread the heat of the kitchen itself will keep it at a desirable temperature. If it's under 70 degrees in the room the yeast will grow, but very slowly.

Toppings: You can easily add sesame seeds, oats or whatever to the top your loaf. Simply brush with shortening (not salted butter, it will burn and discolor the loaf) and sprinkle topping immediately. Replace in over for another 2 minutes and remove. If you are adding toppings you pretty much need a cooling rack since by tipping it out on it's side you often loose most of the topping itself since it has not completely cooled.

Cinnamon/Raisin Bread

Work 1 cup of dry raisins or currents directly into the bread dough after the 1st rising.

Don't be shy, use alot of raisins if you want to be able to see them within the loaf.

Add 1 tablespoon cinnamon directly to the batter to flavor the bread.

If you REALLY like cinnamon add a layer of cinnamon mixed with some brown sugar when rolling as jelly roll. This will color the dough as illustrated.

Cheese Bread

Many recipes will call for "grated cheese". We find that when you use grated cheese since it is finely chopped when it is heated it disappears into the bread itself. It gives the crust a nice flavor and texture but does not add much to the loaf.

Add little cubes of cheese to the dough before the 2nd rising to get those nice explosions of cheese that we all love in your loafs and save the grated cheese as a topping.