pros and cons bread makers?

David_Aston

Not sure which forum to ask this question
in.
Would I be correct in thinking that a modern bread making machine would certainly give me control over additives, but would in no way replicate the taste, and particularly the cost of my long time favourite, Sainsburys Granary?

the_cake

Home made bread is, IMO, much, much nicer than anything you can buy. Why not look for a breadmaker in your local charity shop (the larger ones which sell electrical goods almost always have at least one for sale round here, at about £5 - 8 ....) and give it a try? I have been making my own bread for about three years now and would not contemplate going back to shop bought stuff. Good luck!

nuatha

David_Aston wrote: »

Not sure which forum to ask this question
in.
Would I be correct in thinking that a modern bread making machine would certainly give me control over additives, but would in no way replicate the taste, and particularly the cost of my long time favourite, Sainsburys Granary?

Granary is made with RHM's Granary Flour, which can be bought retail as Hovis Granary. If the Sainsbury's loaf contains an additive you want to avoid, then you may not be able to match the taste, but otherwise you should be able to come fairly close.
It's not difficult to make bread by hand, perhaps first trying with a bag of Hovis Granary flour to see if you like the results might be worth it rather than buying a bread machine to start with. (I found bread machines slow, clumsy and bulky compared to hand making, so I'll admit to being biased.)

Farway

Not necessarily MSE but some packet bread mixes are lush, I love the Asda ones, maybe SBY do something similar to what you want

They do of course have additives

Perhaps a web search would help provide a recipe for you?


PS banana loaf is in the Panasonic bread machine as I type

PasturesNew

If you've already got a mixer, then it's worthwhile giving the dough hook a try out. A breadmaker does two things: mixes the dough, bakes the bread. So, if you've already got a gadget that can make the dough, then you might as well just tip that out and bake it yourself - either as "a lump of dough", or in a loaf tin, or as rolls - or a combination.

Bread machines do limit you to having a loaf of one size/shape.

So, you need to work out what you're trying to achieve, what you'd like to end up with and if you've other gadgets.

If you don't see the point of turning on a whole oven for a small loaf, then a breadmaker would fit the purpose. If you like the idea of flexibility of loaves/rolls then a mixer with a dough hook might get more use.

Everybody's different. Personally I buy 40p loaves from Lidl and just put up with it as it's handy/cheap

I'm going to give making bread in my slow cooker a go in a few weeks, when the urge takes me.

David_Aston

Thanks for all your comments and ideas guys!
Years ago, we used to buy Russian grain, which my beloved used her Kenwood Chef to produce flour from. Same machine to mix dough, and then the hard labour of kneeding the dough.(Her hard labour, I should add.) I'm pretty sure we liked the results, but it was, maybe forty or so years ago!
I'm not really troubled about additives, but having had a stoke a month ago, I have cut out all added salt, (and booze!)
My eldest boy suggested homemade bread as a means of reducing salt further.

nuatha

David_Aston wrote: »

Thanks for all your comments and ideas guys!
Years ago, we used to buy Russian grain, which my beloved used her Kenwood Chef to produce flour from. Same machine to mix dough, and then the hard labour of kneeding the dough.(Her hard labour, I should add.) I'm pretty sure we liked the results, but it was, maybe forty or so years ago!
I'm not really troubled about additives, but having had a stoke a month ago, I have cut out all added salt, (and booze!)
My eldest boy suggested homemade bread as a means of reducing salt further.

If you still have the Chef, it will do all the kneeding. (When I'm feeling lazy, I use my Chef to kneed, when I'm not I do it by hand).
If you cut all the salt out of bread, it will be tasteless and lacking in structure (salt works with the gluten and helps hold the bubbles of CO2 in the dough). Try reducing the salt level rather than eliminating it , you could also try using a sea salt as these often have a lower sodium level.
(When I first learned to bake bread the conventional wisdom was 20g of salt to 1Kg of flour, I have gone as low as 5g/kilo though this does work better with well flavoured flours and sourdoughs. Any lower than 5g I've had problems with structure and taste)

May I wish you a speedy and complete recovery.

jk0

I only put half a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of sugar in my Panasonic, and it works fine.

Shop bread tastes horrid to me nowadays.

Goldiegirl

David_Aston wrote: »

Thanks for all your comments and ideas guys!
Years ago, we used to buy Russian grain, which my beloved used her Kenwood Chef to produce flour from. Same machine to mix dough, and then the hard labour of kneeding the dough.(Her hard labour, I should add.) I'm pretty sure we liked the results, but it was, maybe forty or so years ago!
I'm not really troubled about additives, but having had a stoke a month ago, I have cut out all added salt, (and booze!)
My eldest boy suggested homemade bread as a means of reducing salt further.

Hi, I have a low sodium diet, to control a chronic medical condition that I have.

I use a bread maker, and I tend to use low sodium salt when I make a loaf, and I've been getting excellent results - I also make sure that I use unsalted butter in the loaf.

I make nearly all my meals from scratch, to keep the salt levels down. If you haven't found Kallo very low sodium stock cubes yet, I'd recommend them, they are much lower in salt than normal stock cubes.

I've been low salt for about eight months now, and enjoy finding low salt ways to eat different foods. For example, I do a 'low salt pizza'. I make the base in the bread maker, and top it with either tinned tomatoes or passata, things like peppers, mushrooms, onions or sweetcorn, and just a small amount of cheese. Tinned baked beans have loads of salt - so I looked on the Internet, and found recipes for home made baked beans.

Although, sometimes I'd kill for a bacon sandwich...... But it's not going to happen - there's way to much salt in bacon, even for an occasional treat.

Good luck - low salt life is great!

David_Aston

Thank you all again! And thank you for your good wishes for my recovery. We are putting tons of pepper and other herbs into our cooking, but I am still missing the lovely taste of salt.
Strangely, I am not missing the industrial quantity of beer and cider I used to consume! I don't think I would suggest a stroke as an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous however!