Recently I bought a bread machine, in the hope that I could make fresh bread for my brood. The one thing I really wanted to try out was a decent dairy free fruit loaf as that’s my family’s favourite breakfast at the moment. Unfortunately our youngest can’t have the shop bought stuff as every fruit loaf I pick up contains milk, the joys of being dairy intolerant. The only way I was going to get us a loaf we could all enjoy was to play around with existing recipes until we found one that worked.
I also wanted to add things like cranberries into our bread, and other dried fruits we fancied. A quick trip to Waitrose for some bread flour and quick yeast later and away we went. I made a 1.5lb loaf and it turned out really well. A little more dense than the white and savoury breads we had tried so far, but it toasts beautifully and best of all my boy absolutely loves it!
Breach Machine Dairy Free Fruit Loaf
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups Non Dairy Milk warm
- 2 1/2 tbps Olive Oil
- 1/4 cups Granulated Sugar
- 1 1/4 tsp Salt
- 3 cups Strong White Bread Flour
- 3/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 1/4 tsp Fast Yeast suitable for bread machines
- 1/2 cup Dried Fruit
Instructions
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Add all the ingredients in the order above, with the yeast going in to your machine last. My Morphy Richards Fast Bake has a sweet bread setting which I used for this, but I believe you can also just use the normal loaf setting too. Don’t add the dried fruit until after the first kneed. This will ensure the fruit is evenly distributed throughout the dough when it bakes.
Once baked try to resist the urge to slice straight into the loaf, while it is still hot, as all the steam will escape making the bread dry out. Leave it a good 25 to 30 minutes to cool and then slice.
The bread is lovely sliced with a spread on or toasted. It is like a rich tea cake, which my boy absolutely loves.
Also be prepared for the loaf to not last too long either. It won’t have the preservatives in that shop bought loaves have in, so will need consuming that week. Also it tastes so good that your family will likely have eaten it within the first two days anyway – as happened to our loaf!
Cost wise this loaf is fairly cheap to make too. All the ingredients I had to buy, the flour, yeast and fruit, came to about £3. The flour will make around three loaves, the dried mixed fruit probably four loaves and the tub of yeast at least 10 loaves, so quite a bit more economical for us to make a loaf a week over buying two which only some of us can eat.
Having bought our bread maker I have to say I love using it and we all feel a lot better for eating fresh bread without all the additives and preservatives. We have tried a few readymade bread mixes, but I like being able to see what is actually going into our bread. In making the fruit loaf I can feel my confidence is definitely growing, and I want to try more of my own bread recipes in there. The next one on my list to try will be a wholemeal sandwich loaf for the kids lunches. I am keeping everything crossed that it works out well and the kids like it as much as I hope they will.
What bread recipes do you enjoy? Have you tried creating your own yet? I would love to hear in the comments.
Sophie x
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