Honeybee*Hill

I’m sure I’ve blogged before about my romance with my bread machine. I just can’t say enough about it. I lurve it so much that had I met my bread machine before I met Aaron, things might have turned out very different… My bread machine cost me a whole $10 at a secondhand store — brand spankin’ new in the box. It makes a loaf of bread in an hour. It kneads bread dough for me to bake proper in the oven. It handles pretty much all the unpleasantness of baking and yeilds so many tasty results. Now I’ve had guests over who have turned their noses up to my bread-machine churning in the corner… but they change their minds when I produce a fresh warm loaf of chocolate chip bread or honey wheat bread or garlic-pesto bread.

Today’s loaf is also a triumph. It’s curry-raisin-coconut bread and oh boy… we’re in love!

Here’s the recipe for a 1.5 lb loaf in my machine on the rapid bake cycle:

1.25 cups water
2 Tbsp. oil
3 cups white bread flour
3 Tbsp. dry milk
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1.5 tsp. salt
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup coconut flakes (actual coconut flakes, not baking coconut)
1 Tbsp. Garam Marsala
dash of Tumeric
dash of ground Cayenne Pepper
3 tsp. active dry yeast

I recommend this bread with some creamy (natural) peanut butter and a hot cup of chai. Oh yum! I’m in curry heaven!

Preheat oven to 375 and prepare muffin pans with paper liners or grease with vegetable shortening (this recipe yeilds approx. 18 muffins).

Combine and set aside:

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup poppy seeds
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix:

2 eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup oil
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons milk

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry (careful not to overmix) until wet. Fill muffin cups 1/2 full. Bake 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and it passes a toothpick test. After removing from the oven, mix 1/3 cup of lemon juice and several heaping spoonfulls of powdered sugar in a dish. Poke a hole in the top of the hot muffins and spoon a bit of this into and over the hole. Let cool on a rack several minutes. Best served warm with coffee on a lazy Sunday morning.

This is my version of this recipe, by the way.

Enjoy!