One of my Christmas presents this year was a bread machine. I’d been hinting to Chris for the last oh, couple of years or so ever since he started working and had the money to buy me a bread machine really. This year I kept up the hints, turned up the emphasis and this time it paid off. Woot!
I picked up the special bread flour (supposed to be better for bread than all purpose) and some bread machine yeast. I was a tad wary as I’m not exactly Martha Stewart but I figure how can you mess up something that just requires you to put the ingredients in a MACHINE in the required order (wet first, dry next, yeast last) and press a few buttons. Heck, even I can handle that. Of course I had a momentary panic attack when I read in the instruction booklet that I should use the supplied tools to measure the dry ingredients and a measuring cup/glass designed for liquids (there’s a difference??)
*pause to look this up on the ‘net*
I found out this meant one of those pyrex ones as the marks are below the brim and dry means you fill to the top and level. Hey cool something I’ve done for years without even realizing.. Phew! So check, yep I had the appropriate tools.
Ok, not all of us are born chefs!
So anyway, the process itself was super easy. I had to turn the bread machine backwards on my counter as you need to have enough room to open the lid and the cupboards kinda get in the way.
I made the mistake of trying to make homemade bread once and it was a complete disaster. It was still amazing to me however, that a machine could know what to do when it’s supposed to.
After pressing the start button and crossing my fingers I heard the machine making noises every so often, going through each cycle. It took a while but eventually I heard a few dings and it turned off and lo and behold.. BREAD!
The one “bad” thing I can say about it is the rather tall loaf you end up with but heck I can deal. Now I’ve gotten through the initial run it will be nice to be able to make bread whenever the mood hits, and to try different kinds of bread. The cleanup is pretty easy too unlike some of the other appliances I’ve gotten it into my head to buy. I have a bit of an appliance addiction which is very bad considering the limited kitchen space we have.
The recipe I used was from the Robin Hood flour website, a nice basic white loaf. I think next time though I will go with the light crust setting rather than the medium (purely personal taste). I may try to get a little more fancy by adding stuff or trying to make a nice cheese bread. I love cheese bread.
Posted by americanuck
