Berry Bread deliciousness & Giving Project

We've been enjoy Hanukkah around here and also came down with a cold on Friday... which is why I haven't posted in a while.

 

This morning I grabbed a hunk of the mixed berry fruit bread dough that I mixed up yesterday and got it ready for its rise. While the dough and air were doing their magic I was building Lego cars and racetracks with Ryan (a recent Hanukkah present from yesterday - thank you YOU KNOW WHO!) and then drove him and his friend to preschool. All while my bread was rising. 

 

(This is the dough in my bucket that I have just for this purpose... before the mixture was combined yesterday. I'm thinking about switching to a wider, shallower container - like a Rubbermaid one meant to hold a pair of shoes since it's hard to mix things up once there is 8 cups of flour in there, not to mention the other ingredients. With the next batch I will try this.)

 

Before it goes into the oven, the bread is brushed with an egg wash (1 egg mixed with a tbsp of water) then sprinkled with coarse sugar.

 

This bread came out wonderfully!! Served with honey vanilla butter this is a BIG WINNER! We both loved this... and I'm sure the kids will when they get home from school. I will definitely make this one again. There's a variation that suggests baking off this dough as cupcakes (even though it's a yeast bread) and that's what I will likely do with a few of these so the kids have a good (and healthy) grab-and-go snack. 

I also plan on making a loaf to give. It's a part of a new project that I'm starting inspired in combination by a magazine article I read in Yoga Journal, the book 29 Gifts, and the two bread books that make multiple loaves a very doable and delicious thing. What I have in mind is a one year of weekly gifts of food. Each week I will bake something and find someone in my life that I know who needs it or could really use a reminder that someone is thinking of them and loving them. I am likely going to start before the new year because I believe it's too good to wait. I shared my initial thoughts on this project a little over a week ago with Jessi and she is very excited about it and very excited about helping out with it.

So back to the berry bread... Mike came out from his office, as if on cue, summoned, no doubt, by the heavenly smell of freshly baked bread. I was just taking the pan of Mixed Berry Bread out of the oven and put it onto the cooling rack as I heard his door creak open. We both enjoyed a slice together once it cooled. Mmmmm!! I love that he works from home. And he said as much out loud when I was slicing into this fruit-studded loaf. 

I can't tell you how much I LOVE THIS concept and am loving the book Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day! 

I also made an Armenian Flatbread yesterday which, while I don't think I will make again, I have been taking nibbles of here and there and it's like nothing I've ever tried. I had never really thought that you could make so many different kinds of bread with one recipe just cooking it off different ways... hearth bread, garlic-studded baguette, herb-garlic knotted dinner rolls, pan-fried flatbread, etc.