J and I sold our breadmaker before moving. My sister (hello!) has asked me why we sold it, and I think it's worth discussion.We had a Zojirushi breadmaker that came with a video and a cookbook and a million settings. As with most breadmakers, the bread that was baked in its own oven was a strange vertical doorstop, so from the beginning we were only using the machine to knead the bread using recipes it came with (I have never figured out whether you can put an ordinary, non-bread maker recipe into a bread maker). It was our fanciest kitchen appliance...until we acquired our Kitchenaid with handy-dandy dough hook.
Has anyone had success actually making the bread in the breadmaker?I know people swear by them for the kneading, or for making non-bread items like jams, but when is a breadmaker actually used as a breadmaker?
Now that our empire red mixer took the place of the kneading machine, we found ourselves with an enormous appliance gathering dust at the top of the fridge.
Making bread by hand, with a bit of kneading assistance from said mixer with dough hook, was easy and satisfying and wonderful. After all, humans have been making bread for millenia with flour, sugar, water, and yeast. Who needs anything else?
In fact, I was feeling so confident about how easy it is to whip up some wonderful bread without the breadmaker that I came home and decided to whip up some focaccia. As you do.
I found a recipe that was biblically simple - with only the ingredients listed above, in Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Book - and off I went.
The yeast had been in the fridge, and I didn't wait for it to warm up because I wanted bread for dinner.
When it didn't froth after a few minutes in warm water, I thought, never mind, it will wake up a bit when I've mixed it in with the flour.
When the dough didn't double, I thought, that's alright, when it goes in the oven, it will surely wake up and be bubbly and fluffy and light.
Well. Guess what. There are some things you can't rush.
Bread, no matter how ancient, simple, timeless, is simply not one of them.
These were like doorstops. The bread doesn't look half bad, though, does it? But you did need a good set of chompers.
3 comments:
Hello! I've just bought my new breadmaker but have yet to make any really decent loaves with it (have made plenty of not so decent ones with it which thankfully get made into hubby's sandwiches.)This is Diana again btw (not Adrian)!
Funny how hubbies aren't too fussy about food. Makes cooking a lot easier.
i use mine all the time, for dough and for loaves. only in the dead of summer (when we're eating less bread) does it make it to its resting place atop the cabinets; for the rest of the year it's at the ready.
i have no problem kneading by hand (or with fancy machinery), but the bread machine has the added bonus of efficiently cooking your bread without producing a ton of extra heat.
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