Oh the comfort of BREAD!

As my friend Laramie would tell you - bread is the best thing in the world! :) I can't even begin to count the number of times we have comforted ourselves with the warm, squashy goodness of bread. I've discovered a recipe that I have now made several times as directed and once with a alteration. My family thoroughly enjoyed the bread I made at Christmas (it was pretty much gone by the second day!) This bread is called Honey Raisin Bran bread. It's a pretty dense bread, but sweet and enjoyable. Recipe follows:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cups packed brown sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup bran flakes cereal

1 cup milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup honey

2 Tbsp butter, melted

1 cup raisins

In a bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, combine cereal and milk; let stand for 5 minutes. Add the egg, honey and butter cereal mixture; mix well. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in raisins. Pour into a greased 8x4 in loaf pan. Bake @ 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted near center of loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.

My alterations on this recipe were to swap out 1 cup of dried cranberries for the raisins. I felt that this was a tiny bit tarter than the raisins and helped make the bread not quite so sweet. I also put the cranberries in with the milk and cereal and let them soak for the five minutes - it softened them up quite a bit in the bread.