I grew up in the South where buttermilk is a staple in the kitchen, but it wasn’t until I started experimenting with baking in Colorado that I realized what a gift it is for high-altitude baking because its acid can help cake batters set quick enough to offset that sad sinkhole in the center of sea-level cake recipes attempted a mile high. Now that I’m older I appreciate how buttermilk’s sour tang adds a layer of complexity to one-note sweet baked goods.
This buttermilk honey bread recipe is far from an airy cake, but it still benefits from the use of buttermilk over regular milk. I have not adjusted the ingredients or baking time to account for high altitude, but I’m convinced the buttermilk here is still working magic. The result is a well-risen, sweet and tangy country loaf perfect with salted butter or a smear of jam.
Buttermilk Honey Bread Make a 9-inch loaf
Ingredients
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 3/4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Directions
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, sprinkle the yeast over the lukewarm water and allow to sit until dissolved, about 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, stir the buttermilk, honey, and butter. Once the yeast has dissolved, add the buttermilk mixture and stir to combine.
Add 2 cups of flour and the salt, and stir to incorporate. Add the remaining flour and knead the dough, either by hand or using the dough hook of the stand mixer set to medium speed, for about 8 minutes or until the dough is smooth and slightly tacky. If after a few minutes the dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl, add 2 tablespoons of flour at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Oil/grease a large mixing bowl, and place the dough inside, covering tightly with a sheet of plastic wrap and allowing it to rise in your kitchen until doubled in size, about 1-1-1/2 hours.
Once doubled in size, form your dough into a loaf and place in a greased 9-inch-by-5-inch loaf pan, and cover again with plastic wrap to rise until dough puffs about an inch over the top of the pan, about 40 minutes.
While the dough is rising preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Once the dough has risen, bake in the oven for about 35-40 minutes, or until the loaf is golden, sounds hollow when tapped on the top, and reaches an internal temperature of 190 degrees F. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then place on a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.