Breadmaking - recipes, hints, tips, questions

Curry_Queen wrote:

If you're willing to spend that amount of money on a breadmaker I'd seriously advise you to go for the Panasonic one! The SD-252, I think it is, without the nut dispenser is only a few pounds more than that and the difference in quality and taste if bread is astounding! My previous model was a Breville, which does make very good bread, but my Panasonic beats it hands down

I never owned a bread maker before but reading all the comments on here is what tempted me!! I was wondering why you suggest to get one without a nut dispenser?

megasaver_writing_about_the_breadmaker_ciabatta_recipe wrote:

I’d love to know if anybody tries the above recipe, because I haven't yet!

megaxx

I'll give it a bash this weekend or sooner, MS, and will certainly let you know. Have to have a look out for that book too. Cheers for taking the time to write up the recipe, much appreciated!

This is tried and tested by me, an oven-finished machine dough recipe. It dries fairly quickly, so I always slice and freeze it the morning after making it. Makes lovely tasty toast! It's a slight adaption of the "Laurel's Kitchen" recipe I mentioned the other day.


Mainly Wholewheat Bread

(1 ½ pound loaf)

1 ½ tablespoons honey (or the same of Demerara sugar)
1 cup + 2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons butter or oil
2 cups whole-wheat strong bread flour
1 cup white strong bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons yeast
Any combination of seeds (I have used handfuls of sunflower, pumpkin and sprinklings of poppy seeds)


Fill the bread pan with hot tap water to pre-warm, while you prepare the ingredients.

Measure the water and honey (or sugar) into a saucepan and warm through. Add the oil to this, if using oil (if using butter, add that later).

When the water is warm, empty the pre-warming bread pan of water and pour your water and honey mixture in instead. Add the flour, salt and yeast, and if using butter rather than oil, add the butter to the four corners of the flour mixture. Add the seeds if you’re using them.

Set the machine to dough-only. Once it’s underway, lightly brush with butter the inside of your loaf tin.

The dough should be firm, so add more flour if you feel the dough is too soggy at any point. Feel free to check the dough by prodding throughout the kneading stage.

When the dough cycle has finished, turn out the dough onto a floured board and press all the air out of it. Form it into a rectangle, portrait as you look at it. Fold the far end towards the middle, then the end nearest you to the middle also. Place this dough shape into your loaf tin, with the folded ends underneath. Lightly press your fingertips around the sides of the dough so that the loaf is slightly higher at this stage in the middle than around the edges.

Place a damp tea towel over the tin (I sometimes use a dry one, and still seems okay!), and place somewhere warm to rise.

At this point, heat the oven to 180 degrees C, placing a shelf in the middle of the oven.

Check the dough after about half an hour. Sometimes it doesn’t need much longer to rise. It is ready to go into the oven when the dough has risen above the top of the tin. How much is up to you, but if it rises too high it may collapse. Mine has got quite high without collapsing.

When ready, place in the hot oven, gently, to avoid the dough collapsing.

After 30 minutes, take the loaf out of the tin and knock the underside. If the sound is clear and hollow, the bread is ready. If the sound is more of a dull thud, pop back into the oven and reduce the temperature by 30 degrees C. and check every ten minutes.

You may wish to wrap the loaf in a clean tea towel whilst it cools, to give a softer crust. Don’t slice until cold!

I've found that the less you press with the knife as you cut the more likely it is to stay even. That and paying attention, of course

Edit: pressing down can distort the loaf so you can't cut it straight 'cos it's bent already Also the less you press the less distance you're likely to go off line and the easier it'll be to correct.

Freezing is the usual method of keeping such breads. Wrap slices in one's or two's depending on how many slices you most often have. About thirty seconds on defrost in a microwave usually does the trick, or put them direct from frozen into the toaster.

I tried that ciabatta recipe a while ago my experience was that it was a really nice light bread although I didn't really think it tasted like authentic ciabatta - but that could have just been my cooking- I'm not very good at following recipes!