January 25, 2014 - 9:31am
Adapting bread machine recipe, 2 questions
I am looking at Beth Hensperger's Bread Machine book. There are so many interesting recipes, I would like to make some of them. Could I just take a BM recipe and make it by hand or stand mixer? I don't see anything that is glaringly different from a recipe that is written for hand mixing, at least not that I can tell. Or is there a kind of guide line for making BM recipes outside the machine?
Specifically for her recipes, she adds a lot of gluten to the BM version VS none to the same bread recipe made by hand in her Bread Bible. Why is that? Why so much gluten for the BM version?
Thank you so much for your help!
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Bread machine recipes work fine by hand or mixer. You do not need so much gluten -- I use it only rarely, and I adapt most recipes for whole wheat flour : ) The bread machine makes a nice, warm environment so the dough rises fairly quickly; unless your environment is similar, your dough will probably take longer to rise. (That's fine…. I like to use less yeast anyway for a longer rise and tastier bread.)
I think bread machine recipes use a lot of gluten because they think people are wanting a very high rising, chewy loaf. If that is what you are after, go for it. But bread without it is just fine, too : )
Thank you for such a clear straight forward answer Mary Clare. Makes my life easy right away. :)
BTW, I love Beth's book! So many delicious ideas : ) I look to it frequently for inspiration, even though I do not have a bread machine anymore.