November 22, 2020 - 5:40am
Simple recipe needed
I am looking for a simple bread machine recipe that yields a 2 pound loaf. I don't bake in my bread maker so the dough needs to be a ball and not a gooey mess like I made yesterday lol! Right before the second proof I remove the dough ball and put in my pan. This is for my children, so it just needs a simple recipe... the flour i am using is the king Arthur's whole wheat flour. It has a 14% protein. If you have the recipe in grams or weight that would be awesome, I typically make my other breads by weight.
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Bread machine manuals usually have recipes designed for their specific size and program settings.
If you don't have the manual for your machine, go to https://www.manualslib.com/ and enter the brand and model number. Mine, for example, is a Sunbeam 5833. You can then download a PDF manual to store on your computer or device, or read the manual online in your browser.
Here is a recipe for my machine. It is _tailored_ to the whole wheat setting/program in my machine and could be different than the 100% WW recipe for your machine. My machine has 3 rise periods for WW.
100% Whole Wheat Bread
2 pound loaf
1 and 2/3 cups water
2 tablespoons margarine or butter, softened
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 and 2/3 cups whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons active dry yeast
1) Measure and add liquid ingredients to the bread pan.
2) Measure and add dry ingredients (except yeast) to the bread pan.
3) Use your finger to form a well (hole) in the flour where you will pour the yeast. Yeast must NEVER come into contact with a liquid when you are adding ingredients. Measure the yeast and carefully pour it into the well.
4) Snap the baking pan into the breadmaker and close the lid.
5) Press “Select” button to choose the Whole Wheat setting.
6) Press the “Crust Color” button to choose light, medium or dark crust.
7) Press the “Start/Stop” button.
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Generally, I found that my WW loaves over-proofed in the machine. So watch out for signs of over-proofing, like a collapsed roof, and adjust the amount of yeast downward if needed.
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Be sure to use the kind of yeast called for. Do NOT use Instant Dry Yeast, Rapid-Rise yeast, or "Bread Machine Yeast" if the recipe calls for "active dry yeast." I learned that the hard way. The amount of yeast is tailored to the type of yeast, and the manner in which it is added/mixed.
If you must substitute, you'll need to use less instant yeast than active dry yeast. Again, this has to do with HOW the yeast is added and mixed.
Bon appétit.
When developing and tweaking a bread machine recipe, I had to babysit the machine during the latter half of the mixing cycle and all of the kneading cycle, and either add water or flour so that the dough ball would properly "walk" around the pan as pushed/manipulated by the paddle. for my machine, there is a narrow range of hydration. Sometimes over-correcting would require pinching off and removing a bit of dough.
To "dial it in" and convert to weight at the same time, first measure by cups AND weigh out your total water and flour separately, before adding anything in the machine, and use a tad more than you think you will need. Then measure by cups as you put the ingredients in. Then, as you add adjustments during the knead cycle, take the extra flour or water that you add from the leftover amount that was set aside. Then after all adjustments are made, and the dough ball is being "walked" correctly by the paddle(s), weigh the leftover flour and the leftover water. Subtract the weight of the leftovers from the total beginning weight, and that is what went into the machine.
Flour will absorb or release moisture while in storage. So even after you convert to weight and get things dialed in, babysitting the machine during the knead cycle is still called for in my experience. Just like a good baker makes adjustments to the dough "on the fly" when kneading by hand.
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observations: if dough is too loose, sometimes the paddle just spins real fast underneath it. If the dough ball is too dry, the paddle will turn it, but not knead it.
And even though the machine says it can handle a range of dough/loaf sizes, in reality, the "optimum" range of sizes of the dough ball is narrower. At least that is my experience with my machine.