BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!

Subject: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:20 AM

I've made my own bread, on and off, for many years. Madame F. has recently been diagnosed with a touch of IBS and is currently on a special diet to identify the cause. So, no lactose, no gluten - in short, nothing which causes fermentation in the gut. So, to save the manual task of making two sorts of bread - his and hers - on a regular basis, I've invested in a breadmaker.

I was a bit sceptical at first, read the manual and envisaged the first few loaves as perhaps being a bit sub-standard. Anyway, all loaves - including the rather cake-like gluten-free ones - have turned out really well. I'm quite impressed. I quite enjoyed the fun of kneading and proving in the old, manual way (the dough, you fools - not Madame F...), but the old back's not what it was, so the breadmaker seems like a good investment.

I'm a subscriber to "Which", the UK consumer magazine, and this was their Best Buy for breadmakers:

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/17892/Lakeland-Breadmaker-Plus

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 06:22 AM

Never been interested in making our own, but we do get our wholemeal, uncut small loaves from the village baker. Freshly baked every morning on the premises - if we get them before, say about 11am, they are still warm. Delicious.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 06:29 AM

Our own village has two bakeries, but not very much in the way of gluten free. And Madame F. tells me that the gluten free bread from shops is dull - hence the decision to make some better stuff for her.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Charmion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 06:34 AM

I begrudge the storage space a bread machine would require, and so have never given in to the siren song of its promises. Your mileage must vary!

We recently bought a book of "no-knead" recipes for yeast-raised bread that guarantees crusty perfection with only five minutes' worth of work per day. Well, sort of, but I do have to be at home for long periods, or at least able to get home when necessary, to ensure that the freshly baked loaf is available at mealtime. And of course, like any manual baking method, it requires skill and experience ...

You pays your money and you takes yer choice.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 08:56 AM

I thought you'd taken on a baker for the staff of your ancestral estate.

I can go down to the story and buy no-knead bread, mix it up, and cook it. Comes pre-packaged.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: maeve
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 09:29 AM

I'm so glad your new breadmaker is working well for you and your wife, Will. It can certainly be a challenge to meet some nutritional needs,and it seems you have found a good solution. Gluten-free bread needs more mixing and kneading in general, so the machine is a good tool for that. Since you are using it regularly there is probably no storage challenge, and since you both enjoy the results you are more likely to keep on using it regularly.

There are several good gluten-free cookbooks around, some of which might be useful for the bread machine loaves. I also found some links with good tips:
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2011/08/gluten-free-bread-machine-tips.html

This sounds delicious!


Lots of UK recipes here

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 11:43 AM

Thanks Maeve - I'll check those links out.

For my own bread I use wholemeal flour ground at the windmill where I work as a steward in the summer. This is the real deal and has to be "cut" with strong white bread flour, otherwise you'd sink like a stone with it in your stomach!

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 12:00 PM

I'm on my third breadmaker. Each one gave me several years of service, and the present one is the only one I bought in a store. (The first was a gift from neighbors who were downsizing, and the second came from a thrift store.)

Once I started baking in it, I realized how salty bread from a store or bakery is, and that the texture is not so good. Now we rarely buy bread.

I especially use it for cracked-wheat bread, the only bread that's actually high in fiber.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 12:19 PM

We had some friends who got one a few years ago.... they loved it. They loved it so much that they were trying all the fancy recipes-- and gaining weight like crazy. They finally got rid of it.
I am sort of tempted, but not sure we'd resist temptation. I suppose there's many sane recipes, so I will study the idea.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 12:31 PM

My Panasonic SD253 bread machine, which I've had for about nine years, makes bread that is both cheaper and far better than any supermarket loaf. I particularly like that I can reduce the salt content.

For wholemeal, I find that Dove's Farm organic flour produces rather heavy loaves unless mixed with about a quarter white flour. On the other hand, Waitrose own-brand organic wholemeal makes a superb, light loaf on its own. For white, I wouldn't look beyond Waitrose's organic strong white flour, which also makes very nice ciabatta-style bread (in the wrong shape, of course!) with extra virgin olive oil instead of butter.

I always mix all the dry ingredients thoroughly (apart from the yeast) before they go into the pan.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 01:36 PM

Quite right, Steve - the pure, unadulterated organic wholemeal flour does indeed produce very heavy loaves. A quarter of strong white bread flour mixed with it is one of the recipes that came with the breadmaker. And Waitrose flour is excellent.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 01:47 PM

Your flour isn't grown and milled on your ancestral estate by poor but dedicated servants?

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:29 PM

Ah... well... it used to be in days gone by, dont'cha know, old boy. Trouble was, my predecessor - the late heir to the estate - gambled and whored it all away.

Which was damned annoying, I can tell you, as I intended to do just that myself.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:36 PM

Of course it is Rap.....Which is why I throw it in the breadmaker which makes great holes in the loaves which have that lovely deformed trapezoidal shapes.....makes lovely sandwiches with the mustard running all over to hellandbegone through the gigantic holes.   

Had two.....trashed both......opted for the store bought punk bread. Karen makes lovely hand kneaded bread for occasions. And her dinner rolls will create fights for the last one!



Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:36 PM

Yeah, my ancestors gambolled all mine away too (he said sheepishly...)

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:08 PM

Oh, Steve.. how could you! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 09:31 PM

Many years ago I used to make my own bread by hand, I enjoyed mixing and kneading and all. My mother made our bread when I was a child, so it wasn't a foreign activity to me. In the early 1990s my father got himself a bread machine and called to ask for my favorite recipe, a mix of white and whole wheat flour. I figured out how much flour for his machine and that was the end of that call. But a few days later a large box arrived and there was a bread machine.

We thought it was pretty silly, but I made a loaf (the Wellbilt machines make a tall round three pound loaf). I called him to tell him that it worked - and commented that we'd have to get used to the shape. My husband and the kids were eating hot bread and butter in the background and they announced "we're used to it!" My machine has a timer on it, so it can be set up with all of the ingredients and you set the timer for when the machine should finish the loaf. I would set it up when I went to bed and the machine would finish the loaf right in time for people getting up in the morning. Waking to the smell of fresh baked bread is wonderful!

I don't like how that loaf dries out, though, so for many years now I've set up that machine with everything and put it on the "manual" setting. It mixes and kneads, and then turns itself off when the dough is at the stage when you can put it in a pan or shape it how you want. I put it in a standard bread pan, let it rise, and bake it.

I make rolls, pizza dough, bread, all sorts of things in there. It's a tool that if you use it well is worthwhile. I have an extra one that came from my dad's house after he died, and I found another, barely if ever used, at a garage sale for $5 - too good to pass up. That one is for whichever of the kids decides they want to have a bread machine.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 03:53 AM

One of my new lodgers has come equipped with an unused bread making machine and we are looking forward to trying it out.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 08:38 AM

I love, love, LOVE mine. I'm a bread freak anyway -

Anybody got a good recipe for rye bread? It's one thing I don't seem to be able to master.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 02:20 PM

First get a good source of flour! That's the most critical part of specialty breads. I'm looking for pumpernickel ingredients for a friend.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 03:17 AM

Perhaps Will is related to the Duke if Devonshire - this story is from QI, the BBC Quiz programme...

In the Second World War they would have people from the Ministry of Labour going round checking on everybody and particularly on the big estates, to see if all these people, some of them could be released for essential war work. And they went to Chatsworth, the Duke of Devonshire's estate it was, and they, you know, stop watch and clipboard and they checked everybody, and eventually they had an interview with the Duke, and they said; "Well Your Grace, we can understand that you need forty seven gardeners and thirteen under gardeners and you need grooms and you need chauffeurs and you need upstairs maids and downstairs maids and in between maids and laundry room maids, and still room maids and kitchen maids and nursemaids and housemaids and parlour maids. And we can understand that you need the boy to scrape the knives and boots and you need the butler and the four footmen and the under butler. But we wonder if a man economy might be made, do you, does Your Grace necessarily need two pastry cooks? To which he apparently replied; "Oh damn it! Can't a man have a biscuit?"

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 05:18 AM

I have one of these, a Panasonic, and am about to give it away - waiting for the friend I'm giving it to to turn up and collect it. I didn't at all like the big glossy square loaf it made. Besides, Lidl's bread is so good and so cheap…
If it made a round or oval loaf it might be another matter. Hate the big cube of bread, and not that tasty.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 06:13 AM

The Panasonic got mixed reviews in "Which" - the reason I went for the Lakeland option.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: maeve
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 06:20 AM

One US source for excellent flour:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/

King Arthur pumpernickel recipes


Not one I've used, but here's one UK company

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 07:17 AM

Besides, Lidl's bread is so good and so cheap…


Eek...

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: kendall
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 03:26 PM

Back when I was single I spent many winters in Florida at the Spirit of the Suwanee RV resort. Had a neighbor who took a liking to me and she had one of those bread makers. It was fine, warm, but next day it tasted like the box the flour came in.
The ducks in the river liked it.

Another neighbor made rolls from scratch and gave me a few every day. Her husband was too numb to notice.

By the way, I'm single again until the 29th. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 03:36 PM

Ah, Kendall, sorry I can't be there to comfort you - and feed you bread rolls... and share my malt whiskey with you... and play some guitar... and chat up two of the local chickens...

Chickens - at my age - pah!

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 01:01 PM

Why eeek at the nice Lidl bread?

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 10:26 AM

Will,
I've found the bread machines tend to make rather heavy bread ................ so ....... I let the machine do all the work on the "dough" setting then take the dough out split it into two and let it prove for another half hour. I then bake it in the oven. This way you get fresh home made bread that is light and airy (not the thick stodge I often got with the bread machine) AND I get two loaves from one mixture.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 10:38 AM

Another advantage is that you start cutting down on the additives. Flour remains heartily targeted though, but there is a milling add-on for Kenwood Chefs if you can source the grain.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 10:40 AM

Thanks for the thought, Raggytash - appreciated. I have to say that, so far, the recipes that came with the breadmaker have been very good, and the bread's been anything but stodgy or heavy. I wondered a little about the wholemeal: white bread ratio in the wholewheat recipe - I thought there might be too much wholemeal to white - bit it turned out very light and tasty.

I know quite a few people who let the machine do the basic kneading, then prove it, and bake it separately in an oven. I'm going to work my way through the recipes one at a time and then perhaps I might try an experiment or two. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 05:58 PM

Got a white bread recipe that uses milk instead of powdered milk? I have a 2# Black * Decker. The book doesn't have a recipe for "bread". 20 minutes on the net... nada? Why is it so hard to find a simple ordinary white bread recipe?

I drink skim milk in my tea but no matter.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 06:39 PM

My first attempts with the breadmaker produced something that if round would have made an excellent cannonball. I think I discovered the secret of the Battlebread of Bhrian Bloodaxe.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 10:42 AM

Seems to me that when you tote up the price of the machine and the ingredients, you can guy a lot of ready made bread.

Subject: RE: BS: My new breadmaker - what fun!
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 10:51 AM

Very likely, Kendall - but the main point of buying the machine was to be able to make (among other things) good quality gluten-free bread for She Who Must Be Obeyed. The gluten-free loaves in local bakeries and supermarkets aren't very palatable to her, and the ones we can make ourselves are much nicer.

Furthermore, we cut out a lot of the additives that even good local bakeries use.