I had a little break down in the bread aisle last week. Don’t feel bad for me-It was due to Karma. About 2 years ago, my roommate and really good friend Melinda, told me about a breakdown she had in the bread aisle because she could not find a decent bread without high fructose corn syrup. I laughed at her and rolled my eyes.

I was not laughing last week.

Here’s the scoop: I’ve had it in my head since the beginning of October that I wanted to make apple butter (coming soon!). My thought was, ‘how delicious would apple butter be smothered on toast for breakfast? OH! On cinnamon toast for breakfast.’ After that I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. I simply had to have cinnamon bread with apple butter. So I began my search for cinnamon bread.

Not a simple feat. By the third store and after looking at more bread than I could count, I sort of felt like the teacher from Daria who sort of freaked out and got the one ginormous eye. Yeah…I felt like that. All the bread I was finding either  had A. high fructose corn syrup or other chemicals and/or B. raisins. I wanted my bread to be simple with ingredients that are not overly processed. I didn’t want to start my day by shoveling chemicals down my throat! And HFCS is a chemical. I don’t care that once upon a time it was corn. Its made in a frickin’ lab for Pete’s sake!

'WHY can't I get BREAD without frickin' CHEMICALS or RAISINS' yeah...that was me...

And don’t even get me started on raisins. I HATE them. Know the book Green Eggs and Ham? It’s basically 20 pages of this little kid talking about all the places he hates Green Eggs and Ham. That could be me…but with raisins (“I do not like them here or there, I do not like them anywhere, I do not like any raisins, I do not like them, Sam-I-Am”). I know the book ends with him liking Green Eggs and Ham but that’s not the point…My point is, Raisins suck and finding a cinnamon bread without raisins AND high fructose corn syrup/other chemicals is damn near impossible.

Hence the break down. Melinda, feel free to laugh at me and roll your eyes. I deserve it.

I was so excited to make my first loaf of bread I literally took a picture at every step...I'll only subject you to a few

Thankfully, I just happen to have a bread machine lying around courtesy of my roommate, Bonnie’s, Grammie. Bread is surprisingly easy when you just dump it in a pan and let the bread maker do the work!

Raisin-less Cinnamon Honey Bread

adapted from Sunbeam’s Bread Recipes

1 1/4 c. water

2 TBS of Earth Balance vegan butter

3 1/4 c. bread flour

1/4 c. honey*

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon (I was a bit generous with my cinnamon. It may have been closer to 1 1/2 tsp)

1 packet of yeast

Place the ingredients in the bread boxes in the order they are given (except the yeast). Put all the liquid ingredients in and then all the dry ingredients. Make a well in the flour and place the yeast in the well. The yeast should NOT touch wet ingredients. (the directions told me this at least three times so yeah… don’t let your yeast touch the liquid layer). Snap the bucket in your bread maker. Set your machine for sweet dough and the desired color of your crust.

Voila!

This bread was Ah-Ma-Zing. It was super moist and springy and it tasted delicious as toast with almond butter and apple butter. AND it didn’t have raisins OR funky chemicals. Take that super market bread!

This is totally doable without a bread maker, especially if you have a kitchen aid stand mixer. I have a feeling, based on the research I did for this recipe, that you would follow the exact some procedure, except you would layer all the ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and then start it on low. When the dough is formed, you would let it rise for about an hour, punch it down, dump it out of the bowl, shape it on a greased pan, let rise for another hour or so and then bake it. I’ll try it next time this way and let you know how it works out.

OR! if you try it without a bread maker, let me know how it goes in the comments section!

*I know a lot of vegans do not consider honey to be a vegan product due to the fact that it is technically an animal product. I disagree. I’ll be updating the ‘Life’ page soon with my thoughts on Honey. For now, you can just sub in 1/4 cup of sugar, which is what the original recipe called for. I just didn’t want sugar in my bread. I felt honey was a bit more natural and a lot less processed.