home meade bread

[RuthG]

Hi All,

This has probably been asked before but I cant seem to find a search facility so am asking about bread.

I have a breadmaker which i recently got out of the cupboard after many years of idleness (the breadmaker, not me). I have bought some strong flour and Im mixing half and half white with wholemeal.

Now the bread comes out a great shape, and tatses nice enough, but it's too soft somehow. The texture is more like cake (though it tastes like bread). If it gets toasted, it simply falls to bits when you try to remove it from the toaster. And while it isnt dry or chewy, it's not quite right somehow. When I make a sandwich, it tastes ok but the texture is better with lots of butter and some bran$ton or similar.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong? Or if it's the flour?

Or do any of you have any good plain recipes you could share?

Ruth

[theabsinthefairy]

Not really sure RuthG, but if I use a plain/wholemeal flour mix, I find it needs slightly more water than just plain flour (for 500g flour = 320ml water, if just plain flour 500g = 270ml water) And I also use the wholemeal setting which gives a pre-heat for the ingredients and also has slightly longer rises before baking.

If you are using the yeast that requires activating, remember to reduce the liquid volume by the amount you use to activate the yeast with.

Sorry I can't be more help. But don't give up and relegate the breadmaker back to the cupboard.

[Green Aura]

Not much help with breadmakers either - and I don't use white flour.

But the search buttons are on the picture banner at the top of the page. There's a white box for searching the main site and in the top right hand corner is the search all ish facility. I'm sure you'll find something of help there.

[indy]

If all else fails, should you be into such things I have used Dough Improver from Lakeland, is fairly cheap for the quantity and as far as I know has no nasties in it. Made quite a difference when I was using older flour.

[Milims]

Here's our fool proof recipe, but you must use exact measures.
1/2 pint 10floz warm water (use a pub1/2 pint glass if you can get one as measuring jugs aren't all that accurate. If not weigh the water)
2 level table spoons dry milk
2 tablespoons oil
1 level teaspoon salt (again beware of measuring spoons - compare if you can)
1 1/2 level teaspoons dry yeast
Set bread maker to basic.

You can use wholemeal flour but set bread maker to wholemeal. You can also use 1/2 white and 1/2 wholemeal and add seeds etc. Once you have the basic recipe you can fiddle with it. But you MUST use the exact measures. Too much of something and it over rises with a big air bubble at the top and then sinks again. Enjoy!

[RuthG]

Here's our fool proof recipe, but you must use exact measures.
1/2 pint 10floz warm water (use a pub1/2 pint glass if you can get one as measuring jugs aren't all that accurate. If not weigh the water)
2 level table spoons dry milk
2 tablespoons oil
1 level teaspoon salt (again beware of measuring spoons - compare if you can)
1 1/2 level teaspoons dry yeast
Set bread maker to basic.

You can use wholemeal flour but set bread maker to wholemeal. You can also use 1/2 white and 1/2 wholemeal and add seeds etc. Once you have the basic recipe you can fiddle with it. But you MUST use the exact measures. Too much of something and it over rises with a big air bubble at the top and then sinks again. Enjoy!

This appears to be the exact recipe I use! My BM however is set to 'wholemeal' as that was the recommendation in the book.

And I usually add flour too, at a rate of 350g, half white and half wholemeal :)

Ruth

[grahamhobbs]

i don't know anything about using a bread machine but from your description the dough is being overproved, ie it is being left to rise too long before being baked. Unfortunately I don't know how you can adjust this on the machine but you could reduce the amount of yeast (which seems high) as this will have a similar effect.

[Green Aura]

Wouldn't using a white bread setting reduce the proving time?

[Jessiebean]

I second the idea of using the white setting for less proving time. I have been using the french setting lately but the bread is tooooo crusty!

[RuthG]

Thanks I will try that. I think I need to make more bread either today or tomorrow, so will give it a go.

Ruth