I need advice with my bread making

[Odsox]

And Mike, you are excused!!

No he's not, the lazy so and so !
I don't have to resort to a bread maker ... oh, hang on, I do use a Kenwood to knead the dough.

What I didn't like about bread makers is the paddle ripping chunks out of the bottom of the loaf, and I tried several makes. For under the price I paid for all those bread makers, I bought a second hand Chef on Ebay about 5 years ago, which does all the hard work for me.
I now make three loaves at a time which due to arthritic hands and wrists I would not be able to do otherwise, so apart from not liking the paddle arrangement, I agree that a bread maker is probably the next best thing.

[the.fee.fairy]

try baking it with a pan with some water in it underneath, so that there's steam in the oven.

I read a book called Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. It gave recipes that were stickier than normal bread dough (designed to last in the fridge) and then said to bake in the oven with something holding water underneath so that there's steam in the oven.

It works quite well, so give it a go!

[Jandra]

I have a Panasonic SD207 (must be 8 years old, or so) and it is great. However, I detest the ladles in the finished bread, so I only use it to knead the bread. In my experience that makes a much fluffier bread than when I have the dough kneaded by the Kenwood Chef.

Having said that: I can only make resonably fluffy bread with a good proportion of white flour in the recipe.

Since we moved to Germany I use fresh yeast, since every self-respecting supermarket sells it. I was amazed to discover that. In the Netherlands you need to go to a real bakery to get some - if you are lucky.

[JuzaMum]

Nothing wrong with breadmakers, the electric usage for cooking is less than using the oven and I love waking up to the smell of fresh bread in the morning :)
JuzaMum

[Odsox]

Nothing wrong with breadmakers, the electric usage for cooking is less than using the oven

Sorry, not true if you bake 3 loaves at a time in your oven.
I worked out the electricity comparison some time ago and the oven won hands down ... and that was with a crap old gas oven. My spanky new fan oven (well it was spanky new a year or so ago) should be even better with all the insulation they put around them nowadays.

Just found the post .. http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... n&start=30

[oldjerry]

The trouble with breadmakers is when you make a decent sandwich your pickled onion invariably gets lodged in the hole in your slice.This,in my humble opinion,renders them utterly useless.

[JuzaMum]

Nothing wrong with breadmakers, the electric usage for cooking is less than using the oven

Sorry, not true if you bake 3 loaves at a time in your oven.
I worked out the electricity comparison some time ago and the oven won hands down ... and that was with a crap old gas oven. My spanky new fan oven (well it was spanky new a year or so ago) should be even better with all the insulation they put around them nowadays.

Just found the post .. http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... n&start=30

I stand corrected - I'm sure that's what it said in my self sufficientish bible!
I still like my breadmaker though and I only do one loaf.

JuzaMum

[Green Aura]

The trouble with breadmakers is when you make a decent sandwich your pickled onion invariably gets lodged in the hole in your slice.This,in my humble opinion,renders them utterly useless.

And not only that the bread is a strange shape, a bugger to cut because it's very floppy and I always lose half the contents because the sandwich is huge!

But that might just be my experience - I know some of the newer breadmakers make loaf-shaped bread instead the big square plant pot ours produced.

[MKG]

This paddle doesn't stick in the bread, especially not if you oil it before putting in the rest of the ingredients. And it makes loaf-shaped loaves.

Nuh, nuh, na nuh, nuh

Mike

[oldjerry]

No hole??

[MKG]

Well yes, there is a hole. But if you get the bread out of the pan immediately (and hence the paddle out of the bread), the hole turns out to be surprisingly small. Or at least ineffective as a hole.

For bread of that quality and that amount of work, I regard the hole as a tiny price to pay.

Mike

[oldjerry]

Sorry we'll have to differ on this,as personally I regard the inability to successfully hold a pickled onion in situ to be a deal breaker!

[MKG]

It's a quandary.

Have you thought about putting the pickled onion at the other end of the sandwich?

Mike

[Chants Cottage]

I baked a white loaf the other day and replaced about half the water with milk. It definitely made the bread softer, but still relatively heavy compared to shop bought stuff. Don't know how this would effect wholemeal though...

[oldjerry]

It's a quandary.

Have you thought about putting the pickled onion at the other end of the sandwich?

Mike

Bloody Hell,never thought of that.I'll buy one straight away.