Breadmaker not... making bread!

Penelope_Penguin

When I make a brown loaf, I use half and half white and brown flour. You could try that, and then change the proportions to suit you.

Penny. x

ka7e

I have a Russell Hobbs bm that uses exactly the same ingredients for a 2lb loaf apart from using 4 cups off flour rather than 3 and 1/8. Most recipes are best using half and half white and wholemeal flours - 100% wholemeal being rather dense.
Traditional yeast is cheap, but the fast action yeast (in sachets) is especially formulated to work in breadmakers.
Also I found oil produces a loose textured loaf and I prefer to use olive oil spread or butter.

littleredhen

i don't use skimmed milk powder in mine anymore (nor milk) and when i use strong wholemeal flour i usually use some white aswell so for me it would be 1lb of wholemeal flour and i use 12 oz of wholemeal and 4 oz of white flour (strong) i buy Tescos own dried yeast sachets or Hovis whichever are cheaper and 300 ml of water (sorry don't know how that equates to cups) but as i said if you use all wholemeal flour it can be very heavy
if you make rolls it seems to work out more economical - the above makes at least 8 rolls usually 10 which does 4 of us 2 days for lunches and 4 for the freezer - hope this helps

nell2

Hi Linzibean
I used to have one of these a long time ago I think. Is it the one with two paddles in it?
I never could make decent bread in it, and in the end just used it to make dough (which it could cope with) and assumed that I just wasn't cut out to be a home maker.
Anyway, I did decide to get another breadmaker years later, and the difference is huge. I now make all the bread we eat everyday, and lots of special recipe breads as well.
I fear the breadmaker may be the problem, but I do hope you have more luck than me and that you get it sorted out. All is not lost though, because you can use it to make dough, then bake it in the oven yourself.

fatbelly

I think the key here is to reduce the amount of water. I suspect if you observe the BM half-way through, the dough isn't making a nice 'ball' because it's too sloppy.

I had this happen on mine a few times.

The other thing I do is to give the liquid ingredients a good stir before adding the flour.

Kaz2904

With my morphy richards I always use hot water or it doesn't rise too well. I use the orange tin of yeast but need to add 1 1/4 tsp. Also I don't add any salt which apparently stops the yeast rising too far (not your problem I'd say!)
DH used the quickbake option and his loaf turned out like this. I think you will manage to iron out the kinks over time. good luck.

ubamother

i don't use a breadmaker, but in a freebie booklet about bread from a sunday paper a friend gave me, it stresses the importance of the vitamin c when using wholemeal flour - can't find the booklet to check exactly what it says but i think it was something to do with less gluten produced from wholemeal flour to trap the air bubbles and the vitamin c makes this happen. If i find it I'll post what it really says!