by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
As reader will have gathered by now it is Real Bread Maker Week from May 1 to May 9, 2010 (which is a little more than a week, I guess) and I, certainly, are participating in that I am putting my bread machine to good use.
If you have a bread machine sitting around at home I encourage you to get it out and use it to make your own bread. You will not regret it.
Having to admit that I bought a bread machine only recently from Lidl, the discount store, for less than thirty GBP, I am more than glad that I did and am certainly not regretting it one bit.
It is a little bit of a learning curve to get the mix of the ingredients right, such as the amount of water to the amount of flour and all that but I am getting it down to a fine art by now.
While, theoretically, you should be able to walk away from it and leave the machine to do it entirely on its own I do like to make sure that, after the final mixing after the first final raising circle and before the final one, that the dough is leveled out in the tin. This is to ensure a good shaped loaf.
May years ago I used to make bread entirely by hand but when one does not have the time and space either then a bread machine is the best alternative and one that works brilliantly and – and this is important – much cheaper and with much less energy usage than could ever be done in an oven.
In fact, while writing this article a loaf of bread is in production and in the final stages of being finished.
May people tend to claim that such bread – made in such a machine – does not keep well but I must say that I am keeping loaves successfully for about a week using a bread bin and food keeper bags from Lakeland.
So, don't let your bread machine gather dust and make some real bread for you and your family.
Real Bread Maker Week may only last till May 9 this year but that does not mean that you should stop after that time and, for some reason, I am sure that once you got the hang of making bread in that way you will not want to and you will not want to go back to the bread from the supermarkets.
All breads, other than homemade ones, will contain a variety of flour improver of one kind or the other and preservatives, many of which may not be too healthy for us.
So let's hear it for real bread and the Real Bread Maker Week.
© 2010
