Awake at 5am.

Yes… it’s known that mums often get woken up at 5am. Many reasons for this phenomena. Need to pee, the baby has woken, the toddler has entered the bedroom, the husband is snoring, it’s light outside… some of the more popular ones in my family. Well, today I woke up as Emma started stirring so got up to make her a bottle of milk in the hope she will roll over and go back to sleep afterwards. The milk worked it’s a magic trick.  Baby back to sleep but I, unfortunately, was wide awake. So I decided to get up. Faced with a number of options to occupy my time, I decided to make a treat for the family this morning with freshly baked fruit loaf.  

There is nothing more homely and happy as the smell of fresh bread baking. Plus would be nice for the family to wake up to the intoxicating smell wafting into the bedrooms.  I might even win a “Wife of the Day” award with this!

Fruit Loaf – nothing like the smell of cinnamon to put a smile on faces. Now I’ll be honest, I can’t take credit for the full recipe. But I have amended an existing recipe to our tastes.  We prefer to have our loaf laden with fruit throughout and quite aromatic with lots of spice.  

Another moment of honesty is that we have a bread maker.  Some might think is cheating.  I tend to think of this as being clever with my time! You can make this recipe quite easily without a bread maker and I’ll explain how in the recipe below.

Fruit Loaf

This fruit loaf can be made in either a breadmaker or by hand. The smell of freshly baked bread is intoxicating and this fruit loaf is no different. Make this early so it's ready for breakfast or morning tea.

Baking, Bread, Breakfast

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Servings 750 loaf

Ingredients

 

• 270 ml water
• 1.5 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
• 1.5 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk powder
• 3 cups baking flour
• 1.5 teaspoons yeast granules
• 3/4 cup dried mixed fruit, (currents, mixed peel, raisins)

Instructions

 

If using a bread maker:

• Put all ingredients in the above order into your bread maker. Set it onto a "sweet" setting if you have this. If not, go with a setting that takes about 3.5hrs from start to finish.
• Once the dough has gone through it's first kneading, pause the bread cycle, take the dough out of the bread maker and mix in the dried fruit by hand. Return the dough to the bread maker and start the cycle again. By doing this your dried fruit will be whole and not chopped up by the mixing blade.

If using a traditional by hand method:

• Heat the water to lukewarm, and mix in a small bowl with salt, sugar and yeast.
• Place the butter on the bottom of a large mixing bowl. Add yeast mixture to this and mix well with a wire whisk.
• In another bowl mix together all dry ingredients (flour, spices and milk powder).
• Begin to add dry ingredients, one cup at a time, until mixture is thick enough to turn onto a floured surface, where you can finish adding dry ingredients by kneading them in by hand. (Or use an electric mixer with a dough hook if you're lucky to have one).
• Knead dough for approximately 10 minutes, add in dried fruit and knead for another 5 minutes.Place dough into a greased bowl, and let rise until doubled (about 30-45 minutes) in a warm, draft-free area.
• Punch down, and shape into a loaf. Place loaf into greased bread pan, cover and let rise until doubled again (about 30-45 minutes), in a warm, draft free area.
• Bake at a low temperature of 115°C for approximately 65 minutes or until loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped with a spoon.

Keyword Baking, Bread, Breakfast