In large bowl, mix water and yeast. Add buttermilk, butter, honey, salt, and cornmeal. Stir. Add 3 cups of bread flour and mix well. Slowly add in remaining flour, enough flour to make a dough that follows the spoon around the bowl. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead for 4 minutes, adding more flour as needed until the dough is soft and smooth to the touch. Place dough in medium greased bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so that the top is also lightly greased. Cover with clean cloth and let rise in warm, draft-free place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Punch down dough . Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead for 4 minutes or until the bubbles are out of the bread. Divide dough into 2 equal portions. Shape each portion into a loaf. Place loaves in greased 8 X 4-inch bread pans that have been dusted with cornmeal. Cover and let rise in warm, draft-free place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
Bake loaf at 375 degrees F for 40 minutes or until the bread is dark brown. Remove loaves from pans and let cool on rack.
Bread Baking Tips:
When honey is added to bread dough, it helps protect the baked bread's moisture.
To prevent the honey from sticking to your measuring spoon, coat the spoon in a tiny amount of cooking oil.
Don't have buttermilk? Use this buttermilk substitute recipe instead.
Use bottled water instead of tap water to make your breads. Water softeners and chlorinated public water can sometimes kill the yeast needed to make your bread dough rise.
Brush loaves with butter immediately after baking to produce a soft crust.
You can use any type of milk in this recipe: whole milk, skim, low fat, etc. Milk can also be replaced with water and nonfat dry milk .
Milk can be replaced with soy milk.
There is a milk to dry milk powder conversion table . Use it to figure out how much dry milk to add to the water when replacing the milk in the recipe.
Keep yeast stored in an airtight container and in the refrigerator. Heat, moisture, and air kills the yeast and prevents bread dough from rising.
To keep bread soft, store in a plastic bag.
Store flour properly to keep it from spoiling.
Bread flour has a higher amount of gluten than all-purpose flour. This means that bread made with bread flour will rise higher than bread made with all-purpose flour. You can make your own bread flour by adding 1-1/2 teaspoons gluten to each cup of all-purpose flour you use in your bread recipe.
