Lazy Sunday: (APPLE CHUNK BREAD FOR THE BREAD MACHINE)

Man I love Sunday's! Just change out of your pajama's into your sweat's kinda day. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and applied deodorant. I consider myself clean. Since it was a day where I farted around in the kitchen I wanted to make something I never made before. I found Apple Chunk Bread, yet again, from the old bread machine recipe book from Sam's Club that's a hundred years old. I had all the ingredients so I gave it a try. This is a combination of some of the printed ingredients and my variation on the instructions.

Apple Chunk Bread for the bread machine:

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups milk (room temperature)
3 tbs. vegetable oil
1 tbs. plus 1/2 tsp. Splenda for baking or 2 1/2 tbs. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 medium peeled, diced apple

Topping:
2 tbs. Splenda
1 tbs. ground cinnamon
sprinkling of poppy seeds

Directions:

1. Layer ingredients in order, in bread machine pan, as listed above, starting with milk and ending with yeast. Start dough cycle on machine.

2. When machine stops kneading the dough and is at 50 minutes stop and pull dough from pan.

3. Preheat dryer to high or find dry area to set your formed dough. On a floured surface knead dough into diced apples. You may need to add bread flour occasionally to keep from sticking to the board.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Form dough into football shape. Place on greased aluminum foil or parchment paper on cake pan. Cover with oiled (sprayed) plastic wrap and allow for expansion. Let rise for 90 minutes (in dryer or dry spot) until doubled.

5. Whisk 1 egg with a splash of water until blended. Blend 2 tbs. Splenda with 1 tbs. cinnamon until incorporated. When bread is finished rising, brush with egg mixture, sprinkle with Splenda/cinnamon mixture, and poppy seeds to taste.

6. Place in oven and reduce temperature to 350 degrees. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until evenly browned and sounds hollow when thunked on the top.

7. Allow to evenly cool before slicing. Chill a good chardonnay to eat with later.

Post Script: The next morning Kevin requested a grilled ham and cheese on his apple chunk bread. I thought it was such a marvelous idea that I grilled one right up for him. It was wolfed down so fast I didn't get a picture (Kevin would've freaked). Needless to say it was a rousing success.