Recipes for Bread Makers

My neighbor has a Sunbeam & says the same thing. She mixes hers in the breadmaker & bakes in a regular loaf or cake pan in the oven.

I had that problem, as well. Fortunately, my breadmaker's user guide (which I found online) addressed that very problem. Here are the things that it said that I am careful to adjust now:

1. Make sure that the ingredients are placed in the pan in the correct order.

2. Don't let the salt touch the yeast. Salt helps to activate the yeast. I typically put a little well in one side of the flour for the yeast and then put salt in an opposite corner.

3. Because we are at high altitude, sometimes the volume of bread machine yeast called for in a recipe makes the bread rise too quickly and then fall. The solution is to begin experimenting by backing off the volume of yeast, 1/4 tsp at a time until you find the right volume for your bread maker/altitude/recipe mixture. For most of my bread recipes, I back off 1/4 of the volume called for in the recipe.

Make sure the water is warm enough to react with the yeast. If it is not, then the yeast will not activate and the bread will be a dense and yucky due to not rising. Good luck!

Make it a GREAT week!

S.

I love the book "Bread Machine Magic" it's just full of recipes for the bread machine. Also I didn't like using my bread machine to make a loaf and then there is that hole in the bottom from the mixer, so I always set my machine to 'dough' then I pull it out and kneed it and shape it and let it rise the final time then back it in the oven. I find that doing that makes a nicer looking loaf of bread. :)

Hi C.,

I had the same problem with my bread maker and I found that if I weighed my flour rather than just measure by cups my bread came out perfectly. It seems that flour weight varied greatly between the brands I was using. I would take the flour out one cup at a time and weigh it. Usually the weight was much higher than the recommendations so just reduce the amount of flour until you have the correct weight per cup. You can find the correct weight for all different kinds of flour on line or in your bread maker instructions

It is also important to make sure the yeast you use is not too old.

Hope this helps- good luck,
L.

C.,

I use my bread maker only to knead the dough and then I transfer it to a loaf pan and then bake it. The bread comes out much better.

I have found the same thing. I had friends tell me different things to try. Add extra Gluten, be sure to follow the high altitude recipe changes,use bread flour,and be sure to add the ingredients in the right order according to your machines' directions. The one thing I found that worked every time was a recipe for honey wheat bread. In fact, while I couldn't get a loaf of white bread to ever rise, this would go up on the roof! I have searched my cookbooks and can't find it. I will keep looking, but I always wondered if it was just the difference of wheat flour compared to white.

Here's what works best for me:
Add the ingredients for any given recipe to your bread machine (I use a variety of recipes out of the book that came with my machine). Start the machine on the DOUGH setting. Mine takes 1.5 hours to mix and rise the dough. Dump the dough out onto a floured counter, knead a bit, and put in a greased or sprayed bread pan (a real one, not the one from your machine). Set the pan on the stovetop, turn your oven on to 350. Let the dough rise and then bake. Much less work than doing it all from scratch, but it makes delicious, wonderfully textured bread. I always get compliments on my "homemade" bread!

C.,

Get rid of the bread maker and make it yourself! It is not hard and does not take much mixing time. Get a good mixer (K-Tec, Bosch) which will do the kneading for you, if you want a mechanical help. Bread makers do not save much time and allow you no freedom to make the bread the way you want it.

I know what I am talking about. I have been making my family's bread for nearly 30 years. I work full time, teach part time, am working on a PhD, and have a large garden. I can still make my bread.

I could NEVER get my breadmaker to work. I my loaves came out hard as bricks. I finally threw the thing away. I now make bread the ol' fashioned way. It's not as hard to do as you may think.