Bread with a good story

DC is a strange town. It's a town of contradictions, controversy, conflict and confluence. And occasionally little, tiny, adorable bread makers. With a good stories. It's not every town that has some of the world's best brains coming through, trying their darndest to make their mark on teh world. The Mr. happens to work in a place were such said brains congregate to try to find solutions to the worlds trickier problems. One of his favorite colleagues' stay was cut short by an urgent call home - just some trifling thing about prosecuting one of the Balkans' bloodiest tyrants, and needed to move quickly. He ended up giving just about everything of his away to his colleagues and lucky Mr. P came home with a itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny bread machine. Shoved into some dark cabinet and forgotten for years, a fortuitous search for matching tupperware lids uncovered the little bread-making gem. I was instantly smitten and haven't bought sandwhich bread in weeks!

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good handmade bread. The whole process is remarkably fufilling and cathartic for me. However, in this crazy life, sadly, there is not always time to make bread this way. And so, turning out adorable, delicious loaves of bread in 45 minutes isn't such a terrible alternative. This recipie is scaled for this particular itty, bitty machine, but can be scaled up to other grown-up-sized breadmakers.

Spelt Bread

1/2 c warm water
1 Tbs butter
1/2 c spelt flour
3/4 c bread flour
1 1/2 Tbs agave or honey
1 Tbs dry milk
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp rapid-rise yeast

Place in order in bread machine. Set to "wheat" bread setting and begin baking cycle. Makes particularly amazing toast when well jammed and/or buttered.

for scale