Homemade Mixed Fruit Bread

I have had my bread maker for many years and in fact it is older than my son, Daniel, who is nine this year.  However, although I had enthusiastically used it in the initial years and also during the period of my chemotherapy.  Work and family caught up with me and eventually it went into storage.

Recently I have been a little suspicious of the mass produced bread after my son did his mould experiment for his Science project.  The bread at the supermarket lasted more than a week before it moulded while the one from the traditional bread shop lasted only about 3 to 4 days.  I also had a further motivation when I found that the price of bread is steadily increasing over this one year.  So I decided to take out the bread machine and start making my own bread again, not for the savings - cause if you use good ingredients, you may still end up spending more. But for the sake that I know exactly what goes into the bread.

Below is one of my recipes which I adapted from a few recipes after experimenting sometime, it differs from the ones that come with my machine as it calls for the yeast to be activated with the liquid before the rest of the ingredients gets added in.  I was a little apprehensive but I realised this yielded bread that was fluffier.  I also use dried organic fruits that are meant as snacks rather than those bought at bakery sections as those at the bakery sections looks suspiciously laden with sugar and colouring.

Ingredients:

1 cup of milk
2 tbsp of sugar
2 1/4 tsp of instant dry yeast
1/4 cup of melted butter
3 cups of bread flour
1 tsp of sea salt
1/2 cup of mixed fruit ( I use cranberries, raisins, chopped apricot - organic and non-sulphured)

Method:

Put the blade of the breadmaker into the baking tin.
Warm the milk in a saucepan or a microwave till it is about 40 degrees Celsius.  I usually just warm it till it is above my body temperature, I test it by dipping my finger in, it feels warmer than me and yet I can still dip my finger in.  (It is like testing for fever).  Dissolve the sugar and yeast and wait for 10 min.  If the yeast is still active, it should bubble and foam. (You can do this in the tin or alternative in another bowl and wait for it to foam before pouring into the tin.)  Once it starts to foam, you may add in the melted butter.

Combine the salt and flour and sift well. Tip in the flour mixture to the baking pan of the bread machine.







I usually add in the dried fruit on top of the flour mixture, as I usually do this before dinner, and do not want to check on the bread machine till later.

On the bread maker and set the setting to regular plain and start the cycle.



When the bread is ready (about 3 hours on my machine), remove it immediately from the baking tin and wait for it to cool before keeping and slicing it. 






Extra notes:

This is a basic recipe that is easy to vary.  And yes, it is that simple and I was just plain lazy.
For variations, you can replace milk with water, bread flour can be replaced by half with whole wheat flour.  If you don't like the fruits, you can omit them, I put them in to increase the fruit intake of my kids.  You can put in chopped nuts as well, no problem.  And butter can be replaced with sunflower oil....I do that when I run out of butter, though I like butter fragrance.