I changed the amount of water to 1.25 C & the honey to 1/4 C, which resulted in a better loaf, in my opinion, because I had a nice crust that I didn't "have" to give to the dog. (He still got some; they own us, you know.) The crust was obviously there, but it wasn't rock-hard. And when the machine told me the bread was finished baking, I immediately opened the machine & sprayed the top of the loaf with cooking oil, then shut the lid & let the loaf cool as usual until it was cool enough to handle. Then (also as usual) I removed the loaf from the machine & put it in a plastic bag to finish cooling. Got a nice loaf with beautiful crumb & crust. I'm happy.

This bread FIANLLY gave me a machine-made bread with beautiful texture & good flavor, although I will cut back on the sweetener next time. I used the lightest crust setting my machine has, but the dog still got the crust - & loved it. The other thing that baffles me is, with this recipe, the dough formed in balls which didn't stick together (!) I let it bake that way & treated the loaf as a pull-apart. It's a fine starting place for finding a way to make bread in the machine that has a texture other than baked hockey puck. In fact, it has a very nice texture.

I cut the butter to 1 Tbsp, added 1 Tbsp olive oil, substituted 1 Tbsp raw honey for all the unnecessary brown (or any other) sugar). Added 2 cloves of garlic & used 1/2C onion. A subsequent batch I substituted plain yogurt for the cream cheese (for which I use low-fat cr.ch), & it tasted the same but was a bit thinner. Great flavor!