Give us this day our daily bread(maker)
A couple of years ago I bought myself a breadmaker, and I’ve never looked back. I love bread, I love making bread by hand, and take great therapy in kneading and resting, working to find that beautiful silky texture of the dough.
However, time is my master at the moment, and being able to wake up to a fresh loaf (and a house full the smell of baked bread) is worth the trade off. The weekend is kept for making real bread.
I can’t recommnd my Panasonic SD255 breadmaker enough. There were a couple of things that set it apart from the others I’d looked at, namely the dispenser (for dropping fruit/nuts/seeds etc into the dough part way through) and the timer. If you’re going to get a breadmaker then buy one with a timer or you won’t use it. I set it up before I go to bed, pouring all the ingredients in including the ater and oil, dial up when I want my bread, and toddle of to sleep. A perfect loaf awaits me once I get out of my pit.
One of the things I’ve noticed though is that the recipes that come with it don’t really make the greatest loaves. Often they were a bit too dense, with a tight fine crumb. Fine it you like it, but I prefer my bread to have a far more open texture.
I tend to add a bit too much sugar, at least atable spoonful, which is 3 times what is normally added, which kicks the yeast into being really gassy, opening up the bread texture hugely.
I also add a really good slug of olive oil, which results in a really crisp and flaky finish. It does make the outside of the bread a little greasy sometime (a bit like a focaccia) but it makes the bread much easier to slice when fresh ans I love the chewy flaky crust.
Of late I’ve also been adding a good handfull of mixed seeds into the mix, not using he hopper but just slinging them in with the flour. Flax, linseed, sunflower and punkin seeds have all gone in, and all been great. A big handful fo cheap green olives makes for a lovely Saturday lunch loaf too.
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