Hello everyone,

I'm very new to this site so I hope someone can help.  I used to bake my own bread by hand but age and a kitchen you couldn't swing a mouse in, let alone a cat, convinced me to buy a bread making machine.  It's an Argos own brand one and the recipe booklet that came with it is dreadful.  When I registered with this site I didn't realise it was an American site so most of you may not be familiar with the brand. Let me just say it is a cheap one but it has good reviews and comes with 12 programs and 1.5 lb and 2lb loaf capacity.  There's the difficulty, I've been looking at books and websites and none of them seem to tell me what size loaf I can expect from their recipes.  The manual that came with the machine gives recipes for two basic white loaves, one says 3 cups of bread flour to 290 ml of water for a 1.5 loaf the other says 450g of flour to 250 ml of water for the same size loaf.  The first one is the only one that mentions cups which I'm totally unfamiliar with, I'm a pounds and ounces sort of person anyway.  The whole wheat recipe is even more confusing and calls for 200g bread flour, 200g whole wheat flour and 250ml water.  This was the first and only one I've tried and the mixture was so dry it stopped the machine and I had to add more water.  So, sorry to be so long winded but you could be a big help if you could give me a standard ratio of weight of flour to water to size of loaf.

My grateful thanks if you can.

Maureen