Application Guide

BREAKFAST BREADS
I love the sights and smells associated with sweet morning bread baking. Fruit, nut,
spice, sugar, all come together in the dough. Whether you are making I a barely sweet
slice of toast you can dunk in your coffee or a beautifully crafted bread to serve for a
brunch, these yeasted sweet breads are a welcome and enticing part of baking. They
have a richness in taste and texture that is not found in other types of bread. Favorite
mouthwatering fillings are encased by the dough to create a pretty, delicate pattern
when sliced (Cinnamon Swirl Bread anyone?).
With the parade of edible treats comes the inevitable decision: What
to bake? Stick to the old tried and true? Or, perhaps, experiment with a new recipe?
Whatever your choice, these sweet breads are unique in flavor and shape, right down to
their whimsical final touches. A slice off a loaf chock full of dried fruit and baked in
the machine is a perfect gift or accompaniment to brunch or breakfast.
Many of these special recipes are just a push of a button away with
the Dough cycle; you shape them yourself into beautiful rings and braids. Others are
just as happily made in the shape of the bread pan. These are old-fashioned recipes,
culled from American and European baking traditions, and may evoke some of your
own memories: cinnamon swirl, raisin bread, maple oatmeal bread, granola bread. Re-
member that baking is not just making a recipe, but an activity that interweaves food
with family life and customs.
The flavors of these breads are varied with sweet spices, nuts, ex-
tracts, vanilla bean, citrus, and glistening dried fruit. These ingredients are the baker’s
jewels. I love lavishly studded sweet breads. Some of these breads may have longer
lists of ingredients than other recipes in the book, but there is the same ease of prepara-
tion when they are made in the bread machine. Machines often have a Fruit and Nut
cycle or an Extras choice within the all-purpose cycles that will give an audible signal
when to add extra ingredients. After you have baked for a while, you won’t even need
the signal. Firm additions, like dried fruit, can be added during kneading or with all the
other ingredients at the beginning. Nuts don’t need to be chopped; just let the paddle
break them up during the kneading. When should you add them? A good time to add
pieces of nuts and fruits is at the beginning of Knead 2 (after the pause before the
dough ball begins to form), or you can just open the lid and sprinkle them in gradually
while the machine is kneading. Just be sure to add them early in the cycle, since the
dough ball is well formed ten minutes after starting the program.
These loaves are often especially delicate due to the addition of eggs
to the dough, and rise a bit more slowly than other breads due to the addition of sugar.
But you can use either the Basic or Sweet Bread cycles interchangeably here. The
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