Bread

It's probably sacrilege to ask in this thread, but does anyone have any experience / recommendations of bread making machines?

What's your aim with using one? Timing? Less work?

Just ease of use / set and forget type thing. I have 1 year old twins so have next to no time at the moment.
Was wondering if there are any ones that can make a half decent loaf.

Yes, Panasonic are good - very useful for school lunches and especially so if half of the house don't like sourdough.

I have Panasonic SD253. The bread isn't bad but I use milk instead of water and molasses instead of sugar. Oh and decent flour. If you've twins you'll have no time at all so highly recommended.

thanks, i'll take a look at Panasonic

Ha, I got a cheap (ish) Panasonic when my twins were about 6 months old; they're now nearly 5 and it's still going strong. Gets used for regular white loaves and pizza dough and does a great job.

I've got my method down to a few minutes of work at each step

1 - add 100g of flour and water to the starter, leave in bowl for a few hours
2 - add 400g of flour and water to the above, add salt. Knead for a few minutes, leave in bowl for an hour or two
3 - add dough to baking tray, leave out for a few hours or refrigerate overnight
4 - oven on for at least 30 mins before baking
5 - score loaf, in oven (ideally in a cast iron pan, lid on for the first 15 minutes)
6 - take out when it hits 98 or 99 degrees C

All in I prob spend 10-15 minutes on getting a great loaf. Would be curious to know how much work a bread making machine requires?

cut loaf, in oven

?

For me the main advantage of the bread machine is you can just bung the ingredients in the night before, set the timer, and wake up to fresh bread ready for you. You don't have to faff about preheating ovens, cleaning bowls etc.; not that any of that is necessarily a massive amount of work, but it all adds up.

Is the bread machine loaf as good as my sourdough? No; but if I've forgotten to get bread I can stick the machine on before I go to bread and ensure I can make packed lunches in the morning.

sorry, poor wording - score loaf

Gotcha. Sounds neat, and like you say, far better than anything you can get in a shop

No comparison really - I knead several times for hand making whereas with machine it is
Add ingredients
Turn on
30 seconds tops

I have a Panasonic ZB2502 I'm looking to get rid of. £50 and collection from SE19

milk instead of water

what does this do, please?

Improves flavour I reckon. Most machine recipes suggest milk powder and water. Supposedly it improves keeping quality of the loaf although that is not an issue I can comment on as loaves are going going scone in our house.

ah damn it, all ready made the jump and ordered a new one.

thanks!

Batch of olive mini rolls and a small loaf :-)

1 Attachment

I made my first ever bread last week, it turned out really nice.

I am struggling to get a good texture in my loaf - any pro tips?
I thought maybe I was over-kneading, so tried less. Throught maybe under-yeasting, so tried more. Always get the same result. Bread tastes nice, has good crust but only get little tiny bubbles in the 2nd prove after it goes in the loaf tin, doesn't rise much, and it's quite dense.

Type of flour?
My 'wholemeal' breads tend to be around 50% white flour, otherwise they come out very dense.
(Perhaps better described as 'brown, not really wholemeal')

Was watching that there Paul Hollywood and he was in New York with a baker making bread in a casserole dish. Sure there’s been discussion of this on here!
Can anyone point me in th direction of recipe/steps as I’d like to hive it a go now I have a decent casserole dish..
Thanks

It was mentioned a little while back but I can no longer find that link. Something like this - http://www.girlversusdough.com/2015/08/13/no-knead-dutch-oven-bread/

Keep meaning to give it a go but needs some time planning

Still no bread machine love. Nobody want my Panasonic?