Now while I loved my old bread machine, it took a tumble and fell off the counter and then didn’t work so well.  So, we got a new one – a Breadman BK1060BC. Maybe it proofs a little warmer than the old one, or maybe it’s the new yeast I bought, but we haven’t had much luck with mixing and baking our old bread machine recipes in the Breadman.  It is perfect for making dough, however, and we have a convection oven to bake in anyways.

I almost prefer to mix my bread in the machine and bake it in the oven.  That way you get to make it whatever shape you like and with our convection oven, it comes out beautifully.  Most bread machines seem to come with at least one dough setting (our old one also had a pizza dough setting, and our new one has an “artisan dough” setting which takes over 5 hours!).

Here’s a recipe to try out in your machine, it’s my new favorite, Potato Oat Bread.

Potato Oat Bread

The gluten powder and the lecithin are optional, but recommended.  I posted before, about the benefits of lecithin, but the gluten powder is a new ingredient for me.  Gluten is the protein responsible for trapping the gas the yeast produces, allowing bread to leaven.   Adding an ingredient to bread that does not have gluten (anything but wheat flour), can mean that the bread gets a bit dense or becomes crumbly and lacking structure. Adding the extra gluten powder can give the bread a helping hand when it comes to rising.

As an extra ingredient, gluten was never mentioned at school, and I’ve never come across any information about it in any book I’ve ever read, but I’d seen it at a couple of stores and thought I’d try it.  Galloways carry it, and I had seen it at Save-On-Foods in the bulk bins listed as Super Gluten 100.  I use it now in any bread dough that is not strictly a white wheat flour dough (it is also good for whole wheat breads, as proportionally whole wheat flour has less gluten than regular AP/bread flour).  I also add it to any dough that needs extra structure such as pizza dough.

Home made Potato Oat Bread is a post from: Culinary Tips

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The newer bread machines on the market do all kinds of things other than just regular bread.  They have dough settings if you want to shape the final loaf, they make muffins and batter breads and even jams.  A typical setting takes about 3 hours from start to finish, but once the ingredients are in, the machine is doing all the work.  It even has a delay setting so you can have fresh bread waiting for you when you wake up.

The Cons:

Unless you get one of the few machines that make ‘regular’ loaf shaped loaves, it will make an elongated squared loaf quite different than the standard shape you’re used to.  You can’t leave the finished loaf in the pan for too long after its done or it will get squishy since the moisture can’t evaporate properly.  Plus, since fresh bread lacks the preservatives that keep store bought bread shelf stable, your bread may go stale or moldy sooner than you’re used to.  Natural additives such as lecithin will keep your home baked bread fresh for much longer, though.  With this particular machine, you’ll need to follow the recipes included in the recipe booklet, and some of those recipes are silly and complicated.  Plus, occasionally the bread will rise too high and stick onto the glass – this would be due to user error such as too much yeast, and having the wrong temperature ingredients.

Pros – that fresh bread smell.  No weird chemicals in your bread.  Fully customizable. No more bread squashed on the way home from the store.  It also makes pizza dough.  You can select the size of loaf you want.

Overall:

The Black and Decker B2500C is a good home bread machine for an affordable price.  It makes bread, and really isn’t complicated to use if you follow the recipes.  It isn’t a Breadman or a Zojirushi, but it’s less than a third of the price.   As a dough mixer alone, I believe this machine is worth the price.

I Love my Black and Decker B2500C Bread Machine is a post from: Culinary Tips

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It is typical for home made bread to stale faster than the store bought stuff.  Commercially produced breads have many shelf life extenders added to them to keep them nice until the end of the week.  These chemicals have all kinds of chemical and trademarked product names to go into, but if your bread is still soft a week after you bought it, at least a couple of them are in there.

A home baker probably couldn’t easily get their hands on them even if they wanted to, but there is one additive you you might want to use when baking  your bread.

Lecithin is an extremely common and very useful substance derived from soy and found in egg yolks.  It is an emulsifier, which is a substance that allows fat and water to mix.  In a chocolate bar, lecithin keeps the cocoa butter and solids together.  It is also what allows oil and water to mix when making mayonnaise.

Adding it to bread will keep the fats in a stable emulsion with water and keep the moisture in the crumb of the bread, thus postponing the staling.  Lecithin is also a surfactant and lubricant, so it will make the dough easier to work, allow ingredients to disperse more easily, and relaxes the gluten for a chewier loaf.

To use lecithin to improve your bread dough (rather than buying some expensive dough improver product), use about 3/4 tablespoons of lecithin granules per cup of flour, and mix it in with the dry ingredients.  If you have liquid lecithin, 1/2 tablespoon per cup of flour, added with the moist ingredients should do the trick.

This and other molecular gastronomy ingredients are available at  Le Sanctuaire.  Lecithin can also be found at GNC, as well as other nutrition and health food shops.

If you find your newly shelf stable bread is going mouldy too fast, let it cool THOROUGHLY before packing it away in any type of airtight container.  Warm bread is still giving off small amounts of moisture, which if trapped in an airtight container will settle on  the bread and provide the perfect breeding ground for airborne spores.

Use lecithin to keep your bread fresh longer is a post from: Culinary Tips

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Proofing is simply putting the yeast dough in an environment to keep the yeast happy and alive.  There are two main factors in this: heat and humidity.

In well-equipped professional kitchens (unlike the one I work in) there is usually a proofer.  This is basically a metal box with a heating element and some sort of steam source (I’ve seen them as simple as a metal bowl sitting on the heating element).  These fancy things have both adjustable heat and humidity settings and in a professional setting are very useful.  However, let’s face it – they take up a lot of space and only do one thing, so most places go without.

The simplest way to proof unshaped dough is to place it in a greased bowl and cover with a moist towel.  This will work perfectly fine, but depending on the ambient temperature could take a while.  It also doesn’t work too well for shaped doughs such as loaves and baguettes.  The best solution I’ve found for the final proof of the shaped dough is to turn your oven into a proofer.

Keeping in mind that yeast dies at 140ºF, turn your oven onto the lowest setting it can be on.  This is often even before the numbers on the dial start showing anything – 100ºF works just fine.  Place a bowl (preferably metal) of warm water (not boiling) on the oven floor, and place the bread, on the tray you want to bake it on, above the bowl of water, allowing enough room for the steam to circulate.  Keep in mind that by the time it’s ready to bake the dough will have doubled in size, so don’t put the loaves too close together.  If your oven has a dodgy thermostat, as many do, check to make sure it isn’t too hot with an oven thermometer.

To test if it’s fully proofed, when the dough is roughly doubled, press your finger ever so gently onto it.  If it springs back, it still needs more time.  If it slowly springs back but leaves a bit of a dent, it’s ready to go.  Remove both the bread and the bowl from the oven, turn the temperature back up and bake away.

For perfect bread, try turning your oven into a proofer is a post from: Culinary Tips

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Breads and other yeast products – can be frozen at any stage, but portioned dough is better than a big lump.  Be sure to wrap well or the un-baked items may crust, and the baked items may get freezer burn.  Par baked items (like you can often get at grocery stores) also freeze well.

Quick breads that are made from batters rather than dough (banana bread, cakes…) – are best frozen once baked, or they will lose their leavening ability.

Items with whipped eggs (sponge cakes…) are again best frozen once baked, for the same reason as above.

Cookies - portioned dough is best.

Buttercream icings can be frozen, but they will need to be warmed and re-whipped before using.

Ganaches can also be frozen.

Save time and money, just freeze extras! is a post from: Culinary Tips

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Refreshing crusty bread is a post from: Culinary Tips

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Many recipes I’ve seen call for grated cheese.  Grated cheese is a great addition to lots of things(pizzas, chilli, pastas etc), however it is not a good addition to breads and muffins.  You can use twice or even 3 times as much as the recipe calls for and still not give you a good, cheesy taste, increasing the cost and calories of an otherwise nice item.

The trick to deliciously cheesy baked goods is to cut the cheese into roughly 1-2 cm cubes, and add these as called for in the recipe.  They will stay relatively whole during baking, and will leave melted cheese nuggets in your final product.

For better cheese bread use cubes is a post from: Culinary Tips

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