Homemade bread with less work

I love bread, fresh baked bread is the absolute best. When you make bread from scratch, however, it involves a lot of hand kneading, which I just can not handle any more especially after being diagnosed with osteoarthritis recently. But I refuse to give up my homemade bread. It has fewer preservatives and all the ingredients I can pronounce. Not to mention the taste...oh does fresh bread taste so much better than what I can buy at the store.

Luckily, they have brought out a new invention in the last oh decade or so that is allowing bread making to happen so much easier than previously. And you still get that fresh baked bread smell throughout the house, just like grandma use to bake.

You guessed it...its a bread machine. I absolutely love mine. I have had mine for quite a few years now, I honestly can't remember when I bought it, but it is still working well.

I also have a wonderful recipe book that I pull out when I use my bread machine. The recipes are fairly simple, though they do have some fancy ones in there too.



Sorry for the shadow and again, I am not being paid to endorse the book or my bread machine. I just love them so much.

Here is the basic white bread recipe:



For those of you that prefer wheat bread, there is also a recipe for that, but my house tends to stick with white bread.

Now, it is important to check your specific model to see what size loaf you can make, mine makes either the 1 pound, 1 1/2 pound or 2 pound so I tend to do the 2 pound loaf myself (the recipes in the book are for either a 1 1/2 pound or 2 pound), and to see what order the ingredients need to be added to your machine. The general rule, again check your model for specifics, is liquids first, then dry ingredients, and yeast is the last item added to the top.

Here are the main components of my bread machine along with a few of the little doodads it came with, the machine with the pan, and a small measuring cup/spoon, plus the paddle. It also came with a metal hook to remove the paddle once the bread is finished (sorry I missed this part when I took pictures originally).



Here are the steps:

I measured out the milk and water together here:



Then add that to the pan:



Just a tip though...it helps to put the paddle in before you start adding ingredients. I realized after I took the shot that I hadn't put the paddle in first. I usually spray a little cooking spray around where the paddle attaches to the pan just to help prevent sticking....now the paddle is added.



Then add the butter or oil. I used butter in this case.



Then add the flour. When using a bread machine it is important to use BREAD flour. Regular all-purpose will not work for this. There are recipes that call for all-purpose flour, but the book I use has bread flour specified for all the recipes I frequent.



I use the measuring cup to make a small well in the center since you don't want the yeast to make contact with the liquids on the bottom any sooner than necessary. Once the flour is in, I added the sugar and salt to the well first:



The final addition is the yeast. Again, make sure the yeast is specifically formulated for a bread machine. I bought the store brand from Kroger and believe me this jar has made quite a few loaves already and still plenty in there. They do sell it in packets too if you aren't sure you want a jar this size since yeast do "go bad" so to speak.



Now that all of the ingredients are in the pan, put the pan into the bread machine (make sure it snaps in place if that is how your machine works) and plug in the machine.



Again, check with your specific bread machine for the different settings. Here is mine, which it is set on menu 1, which is for basic white dough, medium crust darkness (we don't like it too dark here or the little one protests), set for a 2 lb loaf as well.



Sorry for the side ways orientation on this one...it was being quite stubborn and no matter how I tried to correct it, cooperation wasn't happening.

Now...once you decide on all that push the pretty blue button (on mine anyway) and then presto the bread is done. Ok, so its not quite that quick but your part of the work is done. The machine does the rest of the work. One word of caution, make sure to put the machine as far back from the edge of the counter or table as possible. This baby walked itself off my table one time and went crashing to the floor...boo on lost fresh bread ingredients and had to start all over again.

My machine takes just shy of 3 1/2 hours to finish the loaf, but the beauty is worth the wait.



Oh, a thing of beauty.

Remove the pan from the machine and unplug it. Don't forget to use the hook thingy, a technical term of course, to remove the paddle from the bottom of the loaf.



I have found that if I cut the loaf while its still hot, it crumbles badly, so letting the loaf cool completely before slicing is important. If you put it directly on a plate to cool, you may end up with a soggy bottom so I would recommend a cooling rack. Or if you are like me and don't have one handy, I use the steamer insert for my rice cooker.



I found that using an electric knife is the best way to get even cuts, but any long serrated knife will work. Keep in mind that fresh bread doesn't have any preservatives in it so it will go bad quicker than store bought bread. In my house, it is usually gone before it goes bad so this tends not to be an issue, but I would say at most a week is how long it will last. If you want to make more than one loaf at a time, make sure to let your bread machine cool completely before starting a second loaf. You can wrap the bread well and freeze it to help keep it longer as well. Slice the loaf completely first to make it easier to take out a few slices as you need them.

What is your favorite type of bread?

Happy bread making.

Danielle