Two posts in one day. This one is time sensitive, since I am going to try again today when my groceries arrive.
A few days ago, Gordon turned to me and said, “I bought a bread machine.”
This is strange for many reasons, primarily because I’m the only one who makes bread and I didn’t ask for the bread machine. Also Gordon isn’t a huge bread fan.
Me: Would you like some bread?
Gordon: Yes.
The next day I get up in the morning and put together a loaf of milk bread and some milk bread buns, which I then bake in the oven. Here are the leftovers.
The bread machine arrives and it’s a massive high tech beast.
And then come the extras.
Husband wants bread.
So I unpacked, I washed everything, I read the instructions, I chose French Bread, a simple recipe, I followed instructions…
Here it is from another angle.
That is a spectacular fail. The dough clearly did not come together. I can’t tell if it even rose. I suspect not, although I know that yeast was alive since the milk bread rose.
I am betting on the yeast. The yeast I have is in a plastic container, but I am guessing it’s not bread machine or rapid rise. But still, like shouldn’t the dough be more cohesive than whatever cauliflower mess this is?
Before you ask, it tastes worse than it looks. I mean, you can kind of taste French bread in there, but it’s not even suitable for croutons.
I am going to try again today and will report back on the success or failure. I have rapid rise yeast coming from HEB.
Interesting result! it actually looks kind of scary. Reading all the comments made me want to bake. I used to have a bread machine waay back before the new millenium. #feelingoldnow and the thing I ended up making most in it was orange and lemon marmalade. There was a recipe for that in the recipes that came with the machine, made amazingly good marmalade. And the smell in the kitchen was lovely. Never used any kind of specialty yeast or flour for the thing, though. But I was never really fond of the way the bread turned out when baked in the machine and ended up using it mostly for marmalade and for kneading and proofing.
I got a bread machine and that same bread slicing board (without the knife) from my mother for Christmas. I did not know about bread machines! I read a lot of reddit posts on the r/breadmachines subreddit and saw first time users often suffered weird loaves. Mine fortunately comes with a clear top so my first recipe was pretty successful– I checked on it and added more flower or water as needed, and made sure it looked like a normal bread dough, and that it had risen significantly before I allowed it to ‘bake’ (bc I could open the top like a washer to check on it). Does yours allow checking partway through?
I’m excited to see your future loaves.
I have the same bread maker, and even the same bread book. However, with this bread maker, the only bread that comes out right for me are the recipes from the actual instruction manual from the machine. As far as I can tell there is no logical reason for this. I have tried comparing recipes that seem exactly the same but are somehow not. That blob you have? I had one of those too.
It is a complete mystery. But now thanks to the BDH I can go through the comments and perhaps get help. So, um, thank you for your strange and fascinating variety of posts! And thank you BDH,,,,
Apple bread pudding is perfect way to use up bread that you aren’t eating. Freese the bread and take out what’s needed for the recipe.
What a VERY interesting result! I have a bread machine and have not achieved such spectacular results as this, even though I’ve come close! We definitely have a very steep learning curve to overcome! Have you thought of naming it something like “man’s inhumanity to man” and contacting a museum? If you look very closely at the top you can see a very small evil face peering out! Yellow slitty eyes and curly white hair!
I’ve made lots of bread over the years, some by hand and some by machines. That result looks like what happens when the blade doesn’t mix, for whatever reason, and you get a baked brick of whatever you put in for the recipe.
I’ve used lots of different flours, lots of ingredients including some that I never would have thought to put in bread, all varieties of yeast (including one brand that kept for over a decade in my freezer as I slowly used it up). There is no one perfect way to make bread. But the paddle does have to rotate and knead the bread for any of them to make anything resembling a loaf. I’ve started mine without the paddle & without the paddle seated properly and have gotten a very similar result both ways.
I haven’t seen another post about the bread so perhaps you have figured it out, but if you haven’t I’m sure you will.
I am wondering about the bread slicing component? I have a plastic bread slicing guide and it is very ordinary, to say the least. Have you used the wooden slice guide pictured and is it any good? I am in Australia and can’t find anything similar online. Thanks in advance.
FWIW, we’ve found Saf Red Instant yeast ‘us’ proof wrt to making bread. YMMV. It lasts forever in the freezer as well.
When I had a bread maker my favorite thing to do was make breakfast style breads using the timer feature. You would wake up in the morning to the house smelling like freshly baked bread and cinnamon!
I have an ancient zojorushi that’s still going. It has different settings for regular and fast rise yeast. You do have to check the fell of the bread when it’s mixing. Sometimes a little extra water, sometimes an extra table of flour.
Even though the loaf from the bread machine was a fail…. the photos are spectacular. Good job! 😀