Home made bread
February 25th, 2010
Those who have been with me for a while might remember I’ve made a few attempts at breadmaking over the last two years. I’ve tried with the breadmaker, without the breadmaker and numerous recipes. Always I had mixed success.
My last venture involved following Rhonda’s recipe at Down to Earth and it was indeed a success. However, it was totally made by hand, which after a couple of days, was becoming a problem for my hands (which I suffer with in the warmer months). After a failure with the dough hook in the Kitchenaid mixer I asked Kevin to bring back home from work our breadmaker (which he said wasn’t being used). I used the breadmaker at one point but wasn’t quite happy with the loaf, esp. the size and shape. And so my latest, and greatest, venture was launched.
Assemble required ingredients (using recipe at Down to Earth)….make sure you get a VERY good quality flour…I use organic unbleached…
Get out the breadmaker….
Place everything in the mixer…and press the dough button….
When finished (about 1.5hours later)..put oven on to preheat….roll into log and place in bread pan…
Cover with napkin and set aside to rise…
Approx 30mins later it will look like this…
Now place in the oven and cook as directed…todays loaf had some friends…
Another 20mins later and you have a delicious loaf to cut and enjoy…
I’ve been making bread every other day for last 2 weeks. Today I tried half white and half wholemeal flour and it turned out great. I think we finally have a WINNER!!!!
Your bread looks good and you need a bread bag now :0)
I’m a bit confused as to when you took the dough out of the bread maker. By that I mean at what stage? Just when it had finshed kneading?
I LOVE home made bread. My husband makes all our bread by hand – we gave the bread maker away at Christmas as it was unused. I love watching DH make the bread – and the children help him so they are becoming good bakers too. My friend does it your way – lets the breadmaker do the work but bakes in the oven.
Doesn’t the house smell lovely when the bread is baking?
DH has a whole selection of flours and alternates now. I like when he does a mixture of wholewheat and multigrain.
Debbie – I’m going to make one ASAP!
Vanessa – I take the dough out after the dough cycle has finished. I think it does 2 rises in there and I do a third out. I’m actually going to cook the whole loaf in there next time just to see what the difference is now that I have a nice mix that we all like.
Jane – Thanks. I did enjoy the making by hand but it was too hard on my swollen hands. At least i know I can do it if “need” be
. I’m still playing around with flour mixtures – don’t think I can buy multigrain flour anywhere local.
Hi Libby,
Firstly I can tell you why your bread making was unsuccessful in your bread maker…the problem is the brand of bread maker you are using. For almost 15 years we made our own bread using a Panasonic bread maker, it produced a perfect loaf every time but when it eventually burnt out (I guess 15 years was pretty good considering we make a loaf every day) we purchased a Breville…the results were terrible, loaves were like heavy cake, not like the light crusty loaves we were used to. We tried everything we could to make the perfect loaf to no avail…
We were fortunate enough that we were able to return the Breville and purchase another Panasonic – it was like magic – perfect crusty bread once again.
We have friends who own Brevilles and say they have never made a decent loaf therefore never use them.
The other ingredient for perfect bread is the bread mix, we have tried them all over the years and there’s nothing to compare with the Laucke Bread Mixes (available at Coles and Woolies)…they have a great range including a multigrain…(They also have an excellent web site http://www.laucke.com.au )
Before we go to bed at night my husband puts the mix in the Panasonic and sets the time so that when we wake we have fresh hot bread for breakfast….(a gorgeous aroma to wake to and a great hit when we have house guests).
Oh, by the way…No, I don’t work for Panasonic or Laucke – just a very happy consumer.