Colonial Brown Bread

A fantastic bread. Dense and not at all too sweet; this is perfect with some butter and/or jam and a cuppa tea. (The bread is quite tasty on its own, too, without any type of spread.) Definitely not a sandwich bread, but a great bread for breakfast. I followed the recipe exactly and found that I pretty much needed the whole hour to bake the bread. The top gets pretty brown, though, so I did a few knife-tests to make sure I still had to let the middle set (I did). The best part about this recipe is that it was EASY to make the bread--no mixers, no taking butter out of the fridge an hour before to soften, no creaming of anything together. Just throw it all in a bowl and mix it up, then bake! Clean-up was a breeze, too.

Great Recipe. I also used 1tbsp vinegar in each 1 cup of milk as a substitute for buttermilk and it turned out really well. Besides this I also added crushed almonds on the top that made it very delicious.

I'm giving this 4 stars only because there is a slight baking soda aftertaste (which can be covered up nicely with butter!). Other than that the bread turned out delicious.

I actually like that this recipe, as stated, makes two loaves of bread because it gave me an opportunity to makes it as stated, then alter the second loaf. The original version is pretty tasty - a slightly sweet whole wheat bread. I suggest testing for doneness at about 50 minutes - at 55 mine were a bit darker than I would have liked, but fortunately the bread was still moist. It was good warm, but even better toasted the next day with some butter and jam. I could see this beinf used as a sandwich bread for maybe chicken salad, especially the fruited kind, but it is definitely sweeter that regular whole wheat bread. To the second loaf, I added a heaping tbsp of honey, same amount of wheat germ, some cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and some chopped dried prunes and raisins to make it more of a quick bread. I like the fruited version better, but still found the original to be enjoyable.

This is a very simple bread to make, with very nice results! ps - I substituted sour milk for buttermilk and it turned out fine.