Making Honey Bread

I’m always on the lookout for a new bread recipe to try. Especially yeast breads. Yeast breads are not as hard to bake as most people think. The most basic bread is flour, salt, yeast and water.

This Honey Bread has a few more ingredients, but is just as basic as bread gets. Mix the wet together, add to the dry, mix well, and then knead the dough. Yes, this can be a bit messy with sticky fingers to start, and you need some patience to roll and fold the dough enough times to make it pliable and soft.

The key things with yeast bread are:

  • use live yeast – this recipe “proofs” the yeast by letting it set to activate it. Foaming and bubbles indicate live yeast, so you’ve “proofed” it’s alive. It it doesn’t foam, the yeast is dead and the bread won’t rise.
  • Instant yeast recipes may skip the proof part, and the yeast gets mixed in directly with the dry ingredients. If you are not sure your yeast is good, mix it will a small amount of water and a pinch of sugar to see if it proofs anyway.
  • White all purpose (AP flour) if fine to use, although often a bread recipe will call for bread flour. Bread flour is specially made to have a higher protein level. Gluten is what causes bread to rise, and gluten develops form protein. AP flour has 9-11% protein and bread flour runs 11-13%, making more gluten available for bread to rise.
  • Use only warm water or milk, and let hot ingredients cool before mixing into the batter or dough. Yeast dies easily and liquid temperatures above 120-130F will start to kill it off, which means the dough won’t rise. So don’t skip steps of letting wet ingredients cool!

This recipe was made for baking it in a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven with a lid. The lid traps in heat and aids in the rising of the bread and creating a crust. The original recipe called for a 7 quart Dutch oven. This is too large for me – it would allow the dough to spread out too much and create a flatter loaf. I prefer to use a 3.0 quart Dutch oven with a handle and lid. The bread can spread to the sides, but will maintain a higher top and rounder loaf. And a Dutch oven that’s round with no lid works just as well too. For other bread recipes that yield a larger loaf, you may want to go with a 5 or 6 quart Dutch oven.

Apart from a beautiful crust and wonderful round loaf, the egg yolks in this recipe produce a lovely light yellow bread, with a find crumb, and it’s sweet due to the honey. In my house we prefer sourwood honey, but any type of honey will do. Different varieties will impart slightly different flavors to the bread.

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Honey Bread

A beautiful yellow colored sweet bread

Course Bread
Keyword homemade bread, honey bread, yeast bread
Cook Time 30 minutes
Rise time 3 hours
Total Time 3 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp active dry yeast
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • ½ cup warm water
  • 4 tbsp butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • ¼ cup honey
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 2 eggs yolks
  • 3 cups flour

Instructions

  1. Put the yeast and sugar in a bowl and add ½ cup of warm water (not over 110F). Stir well t mix, & set aside for about 15 minutes for the yeast to activate – it will bubble and foam.
  2. Melt the butter in a sauce pan over low heat. Once melted stir in the milk, honey, and salt. Remove from the heat and let cool until lukewarm. Add to the yeast and mix.
  3. Add the egg yolks and flour and still well with a wooden spoon until well blended.
  4. With a dusting of flour on the work surface, dump out the dough and knead, adding flour as needed, until the dough is no longer sticky. After about 10 minutes of kneading the dough will be smooth and elastic.
  5. Place in a large greased bowl, turning the dough so it is greased on top, and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise in a warm spot for a minimum of one hour, or up to several hours. Punch down and allow to rise again for another 30-40 minutes.
  6. During the last rise, turn on the over and preheat to 450F. put a piece of parchment in the bottom of the cast iron Dutch oven, put on the lid and place int eh oven to pre-heat the pot as well. When the oven has reach 450F remove the Dutch over (carefully!!) , take off the lid, and gently scoop the dough form the bowl into the Dutch oven. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look like a nice round loaf, it will rise again as it bakes. Bake for 15 minutes with the lid on. Remove the lid, bake another 15-20 minutes without the lid, until the top looks golden. A thermometer should read about 200F for the center to be done. It will sound hollow when tapped.
  7. Remove the pot from the oven and carefully remove the loaf form the pan, allowing it to cool at least 15 minutes before slicing.

Recipe Notes

Use your favorite honey – each variety will impose a slightly different flavor.  The egg yolks produce a lovely yellow bread.

This recipe definitely a keeper, and one I will be making over and over again!

Sourwood Honey Bread