This item is to continue the religious wars about bread machines,
begun in the Volume 1 of this conference.

A bread machine now adorns our kitchen counter.  It is making a loaf
of whole wheat bread even as I type.  I slaved for seconds and seconds
measuring the ingredients and putting them into the bread pan.  This
is my first "from scratch" bread ever.

Eat your heart out, mythago.

357 responses total.

infidel.

Well, after four machine loaves I'm a believer.  Three, the Johnny Appleseed
Bread, the English Muffin Bread, and the second attempt at wheat bread
are all wonderful.  Far better than anything purchased at a grocery store.

The very first loaf, a wheat bread, was made using a recipe from the manual,
and it was good but a bit dense for my taste.  Since then I've read on 
Prodigy's Food and Wine club that many people have found the manual 
recipes to be okay at best.  Another couple of books were suggested, of
which I picked up one, and the last three loaves (from _Bread Machine
Magic_) were amazingly good. 

I'm a believer now.  This is not just another useless kitchen gadget.

Which brand and model did you say it was?

Panasonic "Bread Bakery" Automatic Bread Maker, model SD-BT65P.

Thanks, remmers.  I love you too.

Um, well, my first loaf turned out *great* despite not quite following
the directions.  Best whole wheat bread I've ever tasted.

re the header:  Wishful thinking, John.  :)

The complete reference on the recipe book Mary mentioned in #2 is:
_Bread Machine Magic_, by Linda Rehberg & Lois Conway (St. Martin's
Press, 1992).  Everything we've made from it has turned out great.

Even as I type, the machine is brewing "Anne and Bill's Apple
Oatmeal Bread with Raisins" (p. 96).  I've set the timer so that
the loaf will be ready for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Yum.

Like my sister and brother-in-law (remmers) I, too, am the proud new owner of
a Panasonic Bread Maker. (point of fact is that I am the reason they own
theirs!). In fact, I taught Mary and John all they know about using it! 
English Muffin bread is "brewing" in mine as I type and is timed to come out
about 7:00 a.m. The only bad part about it is that we have a difficult time not
eating the entire loaf at one sitting.  Great invention.  Save a slice of the
Annie's & Bill's Oatmeal Raisin, John, for us to try.

 arrrrgh... it's spreading...the bread machine madness!!!!ARRRGH.

My wife and I browsed our way through Hudson's the other day and we were
both struck by the incredibly humongous cost of these bread machines.
For us, at least, the old-fashioned, labor-intensive method of bread making
seems to be best for our budget.  Obviously, Hudson's is not a discount
store; what sort of a price range is there for bread machines?  And do
you see a correlation between price and quality (/ease of use/consistency
of baking/etc.)?

ABC Warehouse is selling the same Panasonic model we have for $80 less
that Hudson's.

Re #9: Hey Pat, you didn't teach *me* diddley.  I've just been following
the recipes in the book.  The apple oatmeal bread I baked last night
is delicious, by the way.  You better get over to the house quick if
you want some.  (Though actually, you could make it yourself -- it's
*that* easy... ;-)

Best sells a bread machine for $99.  I paid $149 for mine there.
DAK sells the same thing for $129 plus $14 postage and handling; they
include a really neat recipe book with it.  DAK is in chapter 11 now,
though, so be careful.

On Prodigy on the Food & Wine bulletin board there are some great discussions
on types of machines, their problems and advantages.  Not to mention there are
some great recipes posted there. I just baked one for "catskill mountain
french" that is superb.

  Is there any particular model that's clearly recommended over the others?

so that's why I haven't seen a DAK catalog in ages.

re :11 (applause)

The bread machine groupies on Prodigy seem to like something 
called the Zoji as well as the Panasonic and Hitachi machines.
Each are supposed to make great bread while offering slightly
different features.  The Hitachi is at Best right now for 
something like $169.  The Panasonic deluxe model, at ABC Warehouse,
is $269.  

There are a number of bread machine books on the market that
offer extensive information on the different machines.  The
authors of _Bread Machine Magic_ tested all recipes on the same
six or seven brands of bread machines and include notes on how
to alter the basic recipe to get the best loaf with your specific
machine.  

My son and his fiance came in today from Minneapolis and promptly
proceeded to polish off the rest of the Catskill Mountain French
loaf AND the remaining 4 slices (large) of the English Muffin
bread!!  So, now I can start baking all over again and try some
new recipies.  The expensive part of all this is not the cost
of the machine or the cost of all the ingredients, but rather the
cost of the new wardrobes we'll need as we grow out of the old
one.....

                 "CATSKILL MOUNTAIN FRENCH BREAD"

7 oz. water
"almost" 3 cups bread flour
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1-2 TBsp sesame seeds
1 TBsp butter/margarine
2 tsp active dry yeast (Red Star is best)

Makes a 1 lb loaf.  Bake on "french" or "crisp" mode if available,
otherwise "standard" mode.  I used the "crisp" mode on my Panasonic
and used "diet margarine" and "natural" (not toasted) sesame seeds.
Turned out great!  The credit for this recipe goes to Donna Celeiro
of Catskill Mtns, NYS.
Hope you like it.

Hmm, I'll have to get "Bread Machine Magic" to add to my bread
machine cookbook collection.  

Well, we've been having a good time with the bread machine.  Whole
wheat sunflower breads, French breads, apricot bread, Anadama bread...
I don't think we'll be buying much from the bakery or grocery store 
from here on out.  And I don't think we're really eating more bread than
before it's just that what we have is worlds better and fresher.  

This is not another kitchen gadget.  I'd give up my Cuisinart before
the bread machine would go.

That's right.  Wasn't Anadama that character Gilda Radner used to play
on Saturday Night Live?

I thought that Anadama was on Battlestar Galactica!
I don't remember Gilda Radner on Battlestar Galactica, and
I know there wasn't a starship name the Saturday Night Live.

i thought anadama was a bad female rock trio that lip-synched its concerts.

Right-o.  I saw them at the last bandarama.

  That is Roseann Roseannadanna. I believe, that you will find the story of
Anadama bread in Mr. Beard's tretise on Bread.  Personally i can't stand the 
stuff. 

pineal gland

I picked up "Bread Machine Magic" last night.  Hoping try try a 
recipe today.  Unlike Mary, I still buy store-bought breads for
sandwiches, mostly because the bread-machine rye recipe I tried
before just didn't do it for me.  Perhaps one of the rye recipes
in "Bread Machine Magic" will do the trick.

Try these two recipes sometime.  Both make one pound loaves that
are excellent.

       **** Catskill Mountain Rye ****

4 tbsp. gluten
3 tbsp. non-fat dry milk
1 3/4 cups bread flour
1 cup rye flour
1 tbsp. caraway seeds
1 tsp. salt
1 cup water
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. honey 
1 tsp. yeast

Bake on a light bread setting if available.


     **** English Muffin Bread ****

2 cups bread flour
2 tbsp. non-fat dry milk
1/8 tsp. baking soda
2/3 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. sugar
1 cup plus 1 1/2 tbsp. water
1 1/2 tsp. yeast

Mary, is the Panasonic one of the machines that requires you to 
add the liquids last?  I ask because of the order you in which
you listed ingredients.  I have to remember to reverse that
order for my Hitachi.

It's not supposed to make much difference what order the 
ingredients are added in the Panasonic because the yeast
is dispensed separately after everything is pretty much
blended. 

In the machine at this moment is a loaf on honey whole wheat
bread courtesy of chef John.

Ja, my Welbilt needs to have yeast first, then other dry ingredients,
then liquids last.

Well, I tried one of the rye recipes in "Bread Machine Magic"
today.  I think it might have been "Lois's favorite Rye" but
I'm not sure.  It called for one cup of whole wheat and one 
cup of bread flour, but I used all bread flour (plus half a 
cup of rye) because I found bugs crawling around the whole
wheat box (the rye and bread flours were both in glass jars, 
but I didn't have one for the whole wheat).  Yucko to bugs
in flour.
 

The bread tastes very good, though it is a bit shorter than I
expected it to be.  I'll have to buy some new whole wheat flour
and try the recipe again the way it was intended to be made.

Does anyone else have problems with little bugs in grain products?
I guess I need to put everything in glass canisters and jars.

Those little bugs can generally be eliminated by disposing of all
contaminated products (check everything in the vicinity of the wheat
box), and by thoroughly cleaning the storage area.  You probably
brought them home from the grocery store.

From what I've read it's suggested all whole grain flours
be kept in airtight containers in the refrigerator as they
have a lot of natural oils which turn rancid quite quickly.  These
would include the rye and whole wheat flours. Bread flour and all
purpose flour are okay kept in a pantry in sealed containers so
they won't suck-up humidity and other, er, things. For the same
reason most seeds should be refrigerated or frozen. Things like
sesame seed, poppy and sunflower seeds.  Yeast should always be
refrigerated and even then replaced ever 2 to 4 months, max.
Powdered buttermilk should be in the fridge but non-fat dry milk
doesn't need to be.

Since starting this bread-making-with-a-vengence stuff I've lost
half a shelf of refrigerator space to Rubbermaid containers
holding some of these supplies. I've also found a *great* place to
find all this stuff, fresh and cheap - Fireside, off Huron just
west of the railroad overpass.  They carry Red Star yeast in bulk,
dehydrated fruits like apricots and cherries, and every kind of
whole grain flour you could want.

Rye flour makes a dense loaf of bread as does whole wheat flour.
The higher the proportion of whole grain flour to bread flour, the
denser the loaf.  So if that rye loaf you made is about as heavy
as you'd like then I doubt you'd like it additional whole wheat flour.
One way around this, a techique used by bakeries, is to add 1
tbsp. of gluten for every cup of whole grain flour in a recipe.
This will allow a lighter, larger loaf, with the same whole grain
flavor.  Gluten is also available at Fireside.

Yes, I've used gluten in several recipes before.  It helped, especially
when I wasn't using bread flour.
 

Tonight I made "Cheddar/Bacon Bread," from "The Bread Machine
Cookbook II," by Donna Rathan (sp?).  Really, really yummy!

I've kept yeast in the fridge for a year or more and never had a problem
with it working (and my bread recipe uses the equivalent of 1 pkg yeast
to 6-7 cups flour, which is 1/2 the yeast that most recipes call for).

buggies in flour are what sifting was invented for!
(ok, so i throw out flour with buggies in it, but in the olden
days it was supposedly very hard to find flour without buggies).

ever since a bug epidemic about a year ago, i store all flour in
the brown paper bags i bring it home from the co-op in, in the refrigerator.
no sign of buggies.
freezing, if you've got space, is supposed to be an even better
bug-prevention method.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss