Buttermilk Rye Bread

I've been enjoying my bread machine again this winter. It really started when I was hosting dinner for my family and needed to supply bread.  I didn't have anything on hand and didn't want to drive to town just to get bread - so I made a loaf of egg bread  in my bread machine from a recipe in the bread machine's cookbook. It was quite a hit - still warm - and pretty tasty.  My Dad particularly liked the bread, so I've got in the habit of making him a loaf every now and then. 

Buttermilk Rye Bread

Of course after a while I became board with the white egg bread and decided to look at other recipes. I had a small bag of Hodgson Mill, Old Fashioned, All Natural-100% Stone Ground Rye Flour in the freezer from some time last summer when I though I might bake bread from scratch. Yeah right, like that's going to happen. Well anyway, the recipe book has a recipe for Buttermilk Rye bread that looked pretty good.  It is in fact very good!  The stone ground rye flour gives it a brown nutty flavor - nothing like store bought rye at all, but very tasty.  It's also high in fiber, a bonus in my opinion.
The key to making bread machine bread - or any bread for that matter - is to have the ingredients at room temperature, so make sure you take the buttermilk and the egg out of the frig and either warm them up on the stove or let them come to room temperature.

Buttermilk Rye Bread

1.5 lb loaf

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 tablespoons molasses

1 egg

2 cups white bread flour

1 cup rye flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Put all ingredients in bread pan in the order your manufacturer suggests. Choose the French setting which takes 3 hours 40 minutes.  Do not use this recipe with the bread machine timer. Begin immediately.