Dear Bread Machine, We Love You!
Alright, so I’ve been away for 2 weeks preparing for a surprise anniversary party (more about that in a different post, once I get photos), with a horrible migraine, or dealing with the dogs while being out of town.
But mainly because I’ve been playing with my new bread machine!
When we were at Clint’s parents’ house, I asked his Mom about the bread machine that’s always just sat on the counter and I’d never seen used. By the way, Clint’s Mom has every baking ingredient known to man, but I’ve never seen her bake bread.
Apparently, the story is that she got it second hand from a friend, but they didn’t have the user guide, so she didn’t have it either. I wasn’t going to let a simple thing like that keep me from trying to use it. So, we brought home the machine and Clint searched unsuccessfully online for it.
Well, he must not have tried very hard! I found it in 15 minutes. It was saved on a woman’s blog that I found through a websearch, linked to a forum, which then linked to a bad page on her blog. Fortunately, she had a search box and viola! 2 pdf’s were found–the recipe guide and the user guide.
Since then, I have been going crazy. I’d never tried to bake bread from scratch because things like “bread flour” and “active yeast” scared me! I promptly went to Weis the next day and bought the missing ingredients.
On Monday, I baked a loaf of white with the recipe from the book. Ehhhh…it was ok, but hard to cut with big fluffy holes.
On Tuesday, I baked a loaf of Honey White Bread with a recipe I found online. It was pretty good. Denser and a bigger loaf than the white bread.
On Wednesday, I buckled and made Clint a loaf of garlic Parmesan white bread, altered from another Parmesan recipe. I HATE garlic and garlic smell and the whole house smelled of it all evening.
On Thursday, I tried the pizza dough recipe that came with the bread maker. AWFUL!!! It was so watery, I had to spread it with a spatula! And it was bland and didn’t really rise. Fortunately, I fell in love with parchment paper at Christmas and clean up was a breeze!
On Friday, I tried to make another loaf of the white bread. But I was home with a migraine and (while medicated) mistook what was the “add raisins, nuts, extras, etc” beeping as the “ALERT! I’M OVERHEATING!” noise and quickly unplugged the machine.
…that was a bad idea because once turned off, you can’t cheat and go back to where you were! Fortunately, I have a Betty Crocker cookbook and I knew the dough still needed to rise, 2nd kneeding, and 2nd rising. So I pulled it out the machine and did it manually and baked it in the oven. It came out pretty good.
By the way, if you DON’T have the standard Betty Crocker cookbook, YOU NEED TO BUY ONE. I have used it so many times. It’s got measurements, guides, and all sorts of the basic recipes you need! My Mom has one, but her’s is in a 3-ring cover. I prefer mine as a paperback and I have my own, favorite recipes stuffed inside or taped to the inside cover.
Today, I’m baking a new loaf of Oatmeal/white honey bread. It just got done and is cooling! I spiced it up with 2 tsp of cinnamon because I <3 Cinnamon. It’s my favorite spice. If I had to live on one seasoning the rest of my life, that would be it.
On top of that, I’m making blueberry buckle with pears.
So that sums up my week–Baking! I’ve also discovered I need at least 1 more set of measuring cups and spoons, approximately 5 lbs of bread flour per week, and we definitely need to pick up more honey from Clint’s Mom on our next trip.
And if I could only get the bread to come out pre-sliced, that would be great too!
