February 14, 2016 - 2:36am
Hello from Chris
Hi, a few weeks ago I bought a Cuisinart ice cream maker (in the middle of winter!) and was looking at their site and noticed they also made bread makers so bought one more or less on a whim. Never had any thought of making bread before.
It is probably the best thing I ever bought - just throw in a few ingredients, press the button and a few hours later you get great bread, better than anything you get in the shops.
The only problem is it is a bit addictive and I have been trying out all sorts of recipes and ending up with enough bread and cake in the freezer to last weeks!
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... for brown bread ice cream ;-)
-Gordon
So many people think that working with yeast is some kind of arcane, esoteric skill that only shamans and secret societies could be successful with. Then once they give it a try they find it's not so tough at all, and they fall into the wonderful world of homemade bread. It's hard not to become addicted to it, especially when you realize you don't have to eat the mass-produced styrofoam loaves they sell at the grocery store any more.
Welcome to the madness! Hope to hear more of your adventures. :-)
Bread pudding, bread-and-butter pudding (sweet & savoury), crostini, bruschetta and failing all else bread crumbs are hellaciously useful ;-)
Oh, and you'll find that a loaf of home baked bread makes a fine gift. :-)
Hi Chris,
The Cuisinart bread machine is a really good one, and produces some really great bread. As you have mastered a variety of loaves you may find that you want to experiment with other things: Using the dough cycle, but proving the final dough in a banneton (proving basket), or making more free-form loaves (you may need to produce the water contents of some of the recipes a little).
My bread machine is a trusty standby for when time is limited, but it was certainly what got me interested in other baking techniques. I bought another Cuisinart machine for my mom too, and she is delighted with it.
If I have one slight issue with Cuisinart, the bread recipes for a 700g and 1000g loaf aren't properly scaled and the quantities for smaller loaves can be a bit over-hydrated. Generally I tend the trust the quantities for the 1kg loaf and work the amounts back to get the right amount of water for the machine.
One other tip - and one which doesn't go down too well in artisan bread making circles - is that wholemeal breads can benefit from the addition of a small amount of flour improver to give them an extra lift. It isn't the purists' "flour-water-salt-yeast" approach, but it does stop loaves with high amounts of wholemeal flour feeling a bit too much like a brick. The other approach is to use a little more white flour and a bit less wholemeal.
Happy baking and do keep everyone on TFL posted with your progress.
Best wishes, Colin.
hard drug breads:-)
Thanks for the replies. I'm going to try using the machine for dough only. There are some interesting recipes in a book I have.
I have made several of the recipes from the book that came with the machine using the smaller 700g recipes without any problems. As my machine is brand new maybe they have tweaked them from user feedback and issued a new edition?
Chris.
Chris, Good you are getting good results from the recipe book. If you start getting sunken tops then it can be a sign that the dough is too wet for the selected cycle. Best, Colin.
bread! Now I limit myself to 1 loaf a week and the freezer is only half full of bread today:-)
Welcome and happy baking