Day 2: Homemade Bread Mix

What a great homemade holiday gift - for YOU and your loved ones; a basic bread mix that can be festively packaged for creative homemade gifts or made for upcoming holiday gatherings. We decided this is a great "foodie" gift and have put together the mix and package.

Basic Mix:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour


• 1 Tbsp. sugar


• 1 Tbsp. dried parsley


• 1 Tbsp. dried basil


• 2 tsp. baking powder


• 1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

CHEDDAR-HERB BREAD: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease an 8x4x2-inch loaf pan. Place Basic Mix in a bowl. With a pastry blender, cut in 1/4 cup butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in 4 ounces white cheddar cheese, shredded. In a bowl combine 3/4 cup milk and 1 egg, slightly beaten. Add to crumb mixture all at once. Stir quickly with a fork to moisten. Spread in prepared pan. Bake 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn loaf out onto wire rack; cool completely.

The ingredients for the basic mix were all ON HAND and with some gift bags, holiday paper, some fun scissors, curling ribbon, and glue - not much to making this great gift!


After stirring the ingredients of the basic mix together, we packaged in a fun Christmas bag and tied with matching curling ribbon.

Directions were printed and then pasted on the back of holiday paper that was cut into a square with wavy scissors. The fun thing about this is that you can get really creative - try different herbs and cheeses with your recipes. Or you can get fun containers to package your mix in. What a yummy Christmas!