Somewhat of a newbie to this website, and I love to bake!
Hi everyone! Happy Mother's Day to all Moms out there. It has been awhile since I baked bread at home, so I decided to get back into it. I am not experienced with it compared to master bakers, but I do okay. Due to health issues, I cannot stand for long periods of time, so I use my bread machine. In less than a week, I made five loaves; Oatmeal Bread (2 loaves), cinnamon-raisin (1 loaf); brioche (1 loaf) and regular, white sandwich (1 loaf). With the sandwich bread, I was disappointed, but edible. It turned out more like French bread, so I plan to use it for other recipes. My favorite so far is the oatmeal. Both times, the texture came out perfect, and it passed the peanut butter & jelly test. All of the recipes I used came from the instruction book for my bread machine.
I could use some tips on how to get other recipes that can be used in bread machines. I know there are some adjustments that should be made as to amounts of the ingredients, etc. Any help would be appreciated!
Welcome Diane
Mother's Day in Australia too on Sunday but not in the UK, my mum used to quite like having two mothers days with children on both sides of the globe. Your Avatar doesn't say where you are located and thought perhaps you were in Australia till i saw Dab and Lucy's post re mother's day in the USA. Anyway last year i was fortunate to be able to be in the South of France visiting my sister and she uses her bread machine a lot, she was decrying the fact that she was not able to purchase a particular brand of flour and that a substitute wasn't working for her. We did manage to find her preferred flour whilst out shopping just over the border in Spain and she just about striped the shelf bare. She made her loaf and i used the flour she said was no good we both produced some nice bread. Anyway for what its worth here is her formula with my formula for a bench mix to the right
Kind regards Derek
Hi Derek,
Sorry for the delay in replying. I am from the United States of America and living in Texas. Thank you for sharing your pictures. Your bread looks delicious! I am unfamiliar with the language of the packaging and the measurements in the recipe. The US is dependent on Imperial measurements vs Metric in baking - usually - however, many professional bakers in the US prefer the Metric System. I may try my hand in that as soon as I can get more kitchen gadgets such as a scale.
Anyway, thanks again for your reply.
Diane
Scales are probably the best investment you can make, i have a few sets of digital scales including jewelers scales for when i'm experimenting with a small 1 loaf dough when i need quite small amounts and want to be accurate. Packaging was French!
I started to translate the package instructions for this thread, but hadn't got far when I realized it was pointless, first because the photo wasn't that clear, but second and more importantly because that particular pre-made bread machine mix probably isn't sold in Texas anyway. But... It does show that maybe you too can buy a pre-made mix for bread machines. ?
Metric education:
If you'd like conversions either way for a few recipes, just post them here - I'm used to both systems.
My first thought is that online groups are often very enthusiastic. See if there's a group that discusses your particular machine or ones like it - they will know every detail and every quirk in its operation, and they'll have come up with some more new recipes as well.
Thank you, David! Your reply reminded me that I did not include the make and model of my bread machine. I appreciate your help. It is a Breadman Plus TR700/600 series. It is not being manufactured any longer, but when I called the company about ingredient questions, they were very helpful.
Diane
Hi Diane. Here is a collection of Bread Machine recipes:
https://recipeland.com/recipes/for/bread-machine_112
My favorite Bread Machine Cook book is The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cook Book by Beth Hensperger. Used copies can be found on Ebay, or your local library might have a copy.
Happy Bread!!
Thank you, Rube. I will check it out.
I forgot to thank you, Diane...
... for not saying "I made my Aunt June's old-fashioned bread recipe in my bread machine and it didn't work". ?
Bread machines are different enough that it's better to start fresh, with a recipe that was made for a bread machine - and to save oven recipes for the oven. (Even with the right conversions and changes being made, recipes for the one just don't turn out the same when made in the other.)
Except... I was staying with some friends who successfully used their bread machine for oven baking. They used the amounts according to their favourite traditional recipe, put everything in the machine, let it mix and rise in the machine, ... and then pulled it out, put it into a loaf pan, and baked it in the oven. Best of both worlds maybe?
Yes, David; I have read on different bread blogs that bread machine recipes are a tad bit different than oven-baked. The nicest thing about today's machines is that most of them have a dough setting, so you can add your traditional recipe ingredients and mix/knead it and then put it in the oven. That would help me a lot because I cannot stand at the counter for very long due to health issues with my legs and feet.
Hi Diane,
If you search amazon for scales there are a few very inexpensive (less than $20) that are very accurate and weigh in 1 gram measurements. They also convert back to imperial with a push of a button. Weighing everything will take your baking a very big step forward. One of the inexpensive scales will take you extremely far in your baking journey.