All-Natural Cinnamon-Apple Pie Bread

By Heath Anderson of Fresh The Juice Bar

Directions are for a bread machine

Obviously making bread is probably the best smell in the world when its baking. Add to that smell apple, vanilla and maple syrup ... OMG ... Just imagine that smell coming from your bread maker. Needless to say this was one recipe that was very rewarding to make during the Holidays.

As a parent making the Holidays special and memorable to your children is one of the best things we can do. A key to creating lasting memories is to remember to create something special for the senses. Something for the visual sense would be things like Christmas lights, trees, garland, etc. For sound, any Christmas songs you all enjoy playing over and over again and/or the laughter of the family gathering, etc. For taste I like to combine that with smell, so hot cider on the stove, apple pie in the oven and/or bread baking in the bread maker.

I also created spoecial days leading up to Christmas Day and the day's after until the New Year. But I'll save that information for another post or book in the future. Just know and remember to make the Holidays special for your household and it will feel and be extremely rewarding for you. Especially when we age and our children have their own children and you see them pass along the "Love" of special memories during the Holidays to your grandchildren.

Even if you can't bake, if you follow these measurements and very simple directions you will make great bread.

You will be able to give the people you love a special gift that satisfies every sense. You can even decide to make a bunch of loafs to hand out as gifts to the special people in your family, coworkers, neighbors, etc.

Just remember each batch will take 30 minutes of prep regardless of how many you make. So if you just make one loaf it will still be 30 minutes of total prep and if you make thirty loafs it is also just 30 minutes of total prep, so making more loafs just makes sense and it keeps your home smelling great for many days as each loaf is about 3 hours in the bread machine.

Apple Pie Bread

Ingredients:

Bread Mix (5 minutes)

1 cup Water

4 tb Butter

1 tb salt

1 tb cinnamon

1 cup whole milk

4 cups flour or flour substirute (500 grams by weight)

1 1/2 yiest powder

Apple Mix (20 minutes):

1 Fuji & 1 Granny Smith Apple

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp 100% vanilla extract

2 tbsp 100% Maple Syrup

1/2 cup water

Directions:

First measure out the dry ingredients and put into the bread pan in this order. salt, cinnamon, wheat, yiest then mix the top layer only by just swirling a spoon around for 5 seconds to mix flour and yiest.

Second, cut the apples into fine slices like the picture and put into a pan with the other ingredients in the Apple Mix, listed above. Bring to a broil, then reduce to low making sure to stir every couple minutes for another 10 minutes. Turn off stovetop and set pan aside to cool for a few minutes. Cooking times very but you should end up with a syrupy texture.

Third, add liquid ingredients, from Bread Mix above, with the apple mix before it has completely cooled. Add the butter first and let it start to melt then pour in the water and milk. Stir the mix to combine everything.

Fourth, combine the Liquids and apple mix with the dry ingredients already in the bread pan. Luckily this is the last step as the bread machine will mix everything and bake for you. Set the machine for French Bread mode and it should take about 2 1/2 hours - 3 hours until done. All machines differ but should have a french bread mode to choose taking out any guessing game.

Once you start smelling the bread it only has about 30 - 45 minutes left until its ready. So if you're serving it with something else or a meal, that is a great time to start the preparation for the rest of the meal.

Enjoy