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Saturday, September 25, 2010

Gremlins in the bread machine

Lately I've been renaming bread machine recipes with a few of my own choice words.  This most recent loaf rose up over the top of the bread pan and burned itself to the inside of the bread machine while baking.

Bread machine baking lessons:
  • Peanut flour turns bread into inedible chunks of sour, rock hard badness.
  • When a recipe calls for 1 1/2 eggs, you better figure out how to make that chicken lay a half an egg.
  • Vital gluten is usually a really good thing for whole wheat loaves, as it makes them fluffier.  However, this is apparently a "use at your own risk" ingredient. 


I had to break the loaf to get the pan out of the machine
I will try this recipe again, as it looks like a good portion of the loaf is edible, and it seems like a nice light wheat bread, which is what I have been trying to get.  The recipe, Whole Wheat 1, comes from The Bread Machine Cookbook by Donna Rathmell German.  Next time I will not add vital gluten.  If it makes the kind of loaf I've been looking for, I'll post the recipe.  But until then, just assume that there continues to be something gnawing on the wires in the bread machine.

3 comments:

  1. I don't think I've ever really understood bread machines. I've never used one, but I always thought that oven baking homemade bread was an important part of the process. Making loafs that didn't look factory produced was part of the idea. But maybe I'm just missing something. Why use a bread machine?

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  2. Hi Daniel! I agree that homemade bread is ideal, but the bread machine is a big time saver for me. Just dump in the ingredients and I can be off to do all my other projects. I like knowing what is in my food, so I prefer to make my own, and it is more economical. I try not to eat high fructose corn syrup, and the bread at the grocery store that is free of HFCS costs upwards of $3 a loaf. For me, the bread machine is the next best thing to a bowl of rising dough on the counter.

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  3. Vincent, I would be honored to include my blog on your site! I'm happy we bumped into each other. Thank you for the invite to your site!

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