Which bread maker?

[drstitson]

itma - great tips.

re the temperature - as i posted elsewhere this week a French artisan baker on TV a while back used this golden rule:

ambient temperature+flour temperature+water temp=54C.

obviously unless you keep flour in the fridge or a cold pantry then this effectively translates into:

water temperature = 54 - (2 x ambient temperature).

Personally haven't gone so far as to be precise with temp but do use cool water in summer and warm water in winter.

 

[nelletap]

My recommendation is probably not what you wanted. However, to me breadmakers take longer and make an inferior loaf. The best investment is a mixer with a dough hook. 5 minutes mixing, 5 minutes rest. 5 minutes mixing. 5 minutes rest. Form into loaf, put in loaf tin. get old plastic bag, put a few drops of cooking oil in and rub the sides together to spread it. pop the loaf tin inside and leave it to rise for between 30 minutes - an hour. (Airing cupboard or put a damp towel on a radiator and the bag on top of that). Then pop in oven for 35 minutes.

The actual time you need to do anything is about 15 minutes - there is time when the loaf is rising or cooking but for most of us it is just working round that. Ovens these days have timers - I guess you could do the mixing at night and let it rise more slowly in the cold oven and have the oven come on in the morning to have the bread ready for breakfast. The loaves created this way are a better shape than a breadmaker creates, no paddle holes to work round. Give it a try. Start with a bread mix then when you have been successful you can enjoy experimenting.

 

[itma]

... a French artisan baker on TV a while back used this golden rule:

ambient temperature+flour temperature+water temp=54C
...
Personally haven't gone so far as to be precise with temp but do use cool water in summer and warm water in winter.

Commercial baking (even commercial artisan) and domestic baking are different games.

In a production environment, especially an 'artisan' one, the idea is to interleave multiple activities - so that the baker (almost) always has a job to do but NEVER has to be dealing with different things simultaneously demanding undivided attention.
At its simplest, you don't want two products coming ready for the oven simultaneously when the oven will only hold one batch (or those products require different oven temperatures).

The really tricky bit of commercial artisan baking is this scheduling.
And that means controlling the rise time ... which means controlling the fermentation temperature, by in turn compensating for the ambient and materials temperatures, which leads to rules of thumb like this (or investing in a temperature controlled 'proofer' - hint - a honey 'warming cabinet' could give the right sort of temperature).

But at home you should not have that scheduling problem.
So you can easily "give it another quarter of an hour" if you think it needs to rise a bit more.

Similarly, many commercial bakers (particularly American ones), have an excessive fondness for "fresh" yeast. This is an industrially-produced product (invented in Victorian times) with an awkwardly short shelf life - which isn't a problem with daily deliveries, but is for occasional home baking. And it does NOT freeze well.
"Active dried" yeast was invented as a bulletproof product for the US military in the 1940's. It has a very long shelf life, but awful gastronomic qualities (unless you like the taste of dead yeast).
"Instant mix" yeasts (to be mixed with the dry flour) are best for the home baker. Stores well. No fuss. Good clean yeast. Some are formulated specially for bread machine use -- with lots and lots of additives! But some aren't, Doves Farm is one good example. Check the label!



"Pleasantly warm" is all the temperature you require. (Central heating radiators can get too hot.) And you can make bloody good bread by allowing it to ferment overnight (10 hours or so) somewhere cool (10C?). Warmer is not better!
To prevent dough drying out ("skinning") while rising, you'll see all sorts of advice, from covering a bowl with a damp dishtowel to using oiled clingfilm. A cheapo 5 litre lidded tupperware tub is a better-performing, simple and reusable solution.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

anyone use a Cuisinart breadmaker?

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

I use an Annie, been making bread for years and still working well. The Annie will cook other things as well if treated with a new handbags or shoes every once in a while...

 

[roche]

I've got to say itma is inspiring me to have a go at handmade bread...

 

[MrB]

I've got to say itma is inspiring me to have a go at handmade bread...

go for it! it is very Therapeutic

 

[RoofTops]

After the wife's success with homemade bread last week I made a 6 seeded flour bread yesterday and the resultant loaf was excellent - I would have been happy to buy such a loaf from a shop.

After years of making bricks it has been very satisfying to finally crack the challenge.

The BBC book on the Great British Bake Off has some excellent tips on making bread and is what I used.

 

[drstitson]

GBBO book is good (original) plus the river cottage bread book.

the paul hollywood book also appears to be available again at affordable prices.

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

The current Lady DD may be getting a little long in the tooth and a bit creaky at times, but she continues to produce a more than adequate loaf.

Have thought about trading her in for a newer model, but have so far shrunk at the thought of the additional expense.

 

[itma]

... the resultant loaf was excellent - I would have been happy to buy such a loaf from a shop ...

The BBC book on the Great British Bake Off has some excellent tips on making bread and is what I used.

Hollywood is a bit of a poseur. And unsurprisingly his own bread looks much better than it tastes.

I'd strongly recommend Dan Lepard's 'Handmade Loaf' for anyone getting properly interested in making breads that you simply cannot buy in the shops.

Bertinet's 'Dough' is a good intro (ignoring his preference for "fresh" yeast - just use about one third the quantity of instant-mix yeast instead).
Hamelman's 'Bread' is near-gospel, but maybe not for starting from (not for everyone, anyway). A pro artisan book that is ideal for the serious home baker (but lacks colour piccies).
Reinhart's 'Bread Baker's Apprentice' has the best technical explanations of why you are being asked to do the various things in recipes, but its hampered by his not (at that point in his own learning) having recognised the revelatory simplicity of using metric weights*. And his ordering the recipes alphabetically, rather than by thematic or technique grouping, squanders another opportunity of increasing understanding. I haven't seen his latest 'Artisan Bread Fast', but it is said to update and revise his previous teachings and recipes. A journey indeed.

* Weights, and metric ones.
Depending on the flour (and the target bread) the water is going to be from 55% to 70% of the flour weight. Wholemeal flour wants more water, as does 'holey' bread (baguette or ciabatta). 66% (2/3) is a simple benchmark.
So, 600 grams flour needs how much water at 66% "hydration"? Simple - its 400g ! Now, try and look for that pattern when the liquid is given in pints and the flour in pounds and ounces. Metric weighing is the easy way to do bread!
And your salt is going to be 2% (or less if it matters to you) of the flour weight.
The yeast? No more than 1% of the flour weight for instant-mix.
Working throughout in grams makes the numbers so easy., that anything else seems perverse.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

I hereby nominate itma as the Official Baker of the Forum

 

[Erichalfbee]

Fresh yeast from Morrisons up here

 

[DulwichGnome]

Though the wonders of the internet and Sainsbury's multi grain flour, my first loaf!! I'm not sure why but there is a slight 'thickness' to the crust which has gone hard, but it's not inedible.