I Love My Breadmaker

It's wonderful, coming down the stairs every morning, and having the scent of freshly baked bread wafting up to meet me. I look forward, when I'm getting up, to cutting into the warm bread and spreading it with butter. The butter melts into the bread, making a delightful breakfast

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/4840122335/

I'm no baker. I burn cookies, and the few times I've attempted yeast breads, they've turned out..well..more like a paperweight than bread. But with my bread machine, I can produce consistent results with little effort. It's really easy to experiment with recipes that are available online, and I really like that I can control the ingredients that I use.

I can also produce the bread cheaper with my bread machine than I can buy it. I figure that I spent $10.00 a week on bread. 5 loaves at $2.00 each, and that was buying the cheapest bread that I could.

The first week, I had to buy a bit more than the $10.00, but each of the purchases lasts me 2-3 weeks, making one loaf of bread a day.

$ 8.99 10kg White Flour:

$ 3.59 Small bottle of quick yeast

$ 4.99 Small Bag of Instant powdered Milk

$17.57 Total, plus a small amount of sugar and butter that I had at home.

Now, I'm careful to buy less than $10.00 a week, and I buy multigrain cereal, rye flour, and whole wheat flour when I don't need to spend money on white flour or the other ingredients.

When your bread is done, you have to take it out of the pan as soon as possible or it will get soggy. Most breadmakers will keep it warm for an hour, and that keeps the moisture away, but it's best to get it out of the pan. If it does get a bit soggy on you, just let the bread sit out for a bit and the crust will firm up fairly quickly. Also, be sure you let the bread sit for about 10-15 minutes before cutting it.

For cutting the bread, I've found that an electric knife works really well. It slices through the crust whether the crust is hard or soft and you don't have to use pressure which can smush your bread.

Can a bread machine really do a good job making bread?

Here's a few bread machine mixes you can buy from ebay to speed your day along.

Here's an unusual bread that you won't find in your manual. I quite enjoyed this bread. The Rhubarb gave it a tart kick, but there was just enough sugar that the bread wasn't sour, but not so much that it made it a sweet bread.

for 1 lb. loaf 1 1/2 lb loaf

3/4 C. chopped rhubarb 1 C.

3/4 C. water 1 C.

1/4 t. finely shredded orange peel 1/2 t.

1 T. butter or margarin 2 T.

1 1/3 C. whole wheat flour 2 C.

2/3 C. bread flour 1 C.

2 T. brown sugar 3 T.

1/2 t. salt 3/4 t.

1/4 t. ground cinnamon 1/2 t.

1 t. active dry yeast 1 t.

Procedure:

In medium saucepan combine rhubarb and water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 min. or till rhubarb is tender. Measure rhubarb-water mixture and add water if necessary to equal 1 C. [1 1/3 C.] Cool slightly. Add ingredients to machine according to manufacturer's direction.

Nutrition:

per serving: 69 cal, 2 g protien, 13 g. carbo. 1 g. fat (0 g. saturated), 0 g. cholesterol, 77 mg. sodium, 73 mg. potassium.

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