Bread, Bread and more Bread!

I love bread! I really do. We discovered the Great Harvest Bread Co. two years ago when our real estate agent Lu Ann Parker sent us an anniversary coupon for free bread from them after we had been in our home for one year! She has sent the same coupon on every anniversary since. This year, I took the boys there to get their Star Spangled Swirl as our anniversary bread.
It was amazingly yummy!!!
It is one of their special breads that they have around the 4th of July. It has cranberry, blueberry and cinnamon in it. Yum - O!!! My toddler kept asking for more. I think he gets his bread addiction from me. lol
While we were there, I decided to get some of the homemade apple butter that they have. It is SO good! I like it on toast in place of jam.
This one only has 3 grams of sugar and the ingredients are cooked apples and spices. Can't get much more natural then that!

One of the things that I love about the Great Harvest Bread Co. is that even though it is a franchise, it is a family based store. At least the one in my town is. It is a cute little shop and the minute you walk in, you are welcomed by one of the employees offering you a sample of some yummy warm bread that was just baked. And when I say sample, I mean a nice big slice of the bread. When my toddler was a baby, we took a tour of the store with a local moms group. It was so interesting to see how they make all of their breads fresh daily. And of course we enjoyed more samples that day too. It's my kind of store!

Speaking of bread, my friend gave me some starter batter for Amish Friendship bread the other day.

I had never baked this before, but it was so easy. If you aren't familiar (I wasn't!), it is a sweet bread and the batter takes 10 days to mature before you bake it. Each day, you do something different to it to get it ready. Most days you just mush it around in the bag. When it was ready, my toddler Andrew and I had fun making it.
It made two loafs.
And gave me 4 more starters to share. I have heard that it freezes well, so I will probably freeze one for myself and have already given one other away. That leaves two more so if you are in my area and would like one for yourself, please let me know:)

Here is the end result:
I took one to my in-laws for the 4th and kept one here. It turned out SO good.

What is your favorite type of bread?

Thanks for reading! I hope you are having a good and healthy week!

Rebecca