Author Topic: Breadmakers  (Read 11668 times)

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #25 on: 23 March, 2020, 04:42:19 pm »
There was a time when everyone had to have a Teasmade (TeasMaid? TeaseMaid?), which seems to have a similar rationale.

We have a vintage Goblin D25 Teasmade that we bought from a local chap who specialises in restoring them. It's really good! The later models and imitations are cheap tat and don't work, but ours is fantastic. Only problem is the kettle developed a leak so it's out of service right now.

Quote
If you want a machine to knead, a food processor does that extraordinarily efficiently and quickly and can be used for other things*.

I find the KitchenAid with dough hook attachment especially useful for very wet doughs.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #26 on: 23 March, 2020, 04:53:50 pm »
My two penny's worth

I found if I set it up too early and had a long delay on start it sometimes over proved/escaped from the maker.

Secondly remember bread maker bread and hand made goes off so much quicker then plastic breas

I'd be making by hand if I could get any flour

ian

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #27 on: 23 March, 2020, 04:59:55 pm »
I bought all the organic hipster artisan flour, so I reckon every loaf I make costs about £20.

I used to like the spelt bread but the stuff makes me leak more gas than a faulty steam locomotive. Not the stuff to ingest when you're stuck at home.

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #28 on: 23 March, 2020, 05:19:42 pm »
I used to take this into work every Monday morning - for some it was the highlight of the week : -

In the pan at the start : -
300g white bread flour
100g wholemeal bread flour
100g granary bread flour
100g rye bread flour
1 heaped tsp salt
30g muscovado sugar
32g butter
380g water
20g poppy seeds
30g brown linseeds
30g golden linseeds
1tsp yeast

Dropped in at 20 minutes : -
50g sunflower seeds
25g pumpkin seeds

Place three cuts in the top with 65 minutes to go.

It doesn't last more than about an hour.
Rust never sleeps

Woofage

  • Tofu-eating Wokerati
  • Ain't no hooves on my bike.
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #29 on: 23 March, 2020, 07:12:02 pm »
Regarding a basic bread recipe, I don't follow what's in the Panasonic book. My everyday loaf is just the following:

400g flour (a combination of white, plus wholemeal, spelt, rye etc up to about 50%)
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp quick yeast
300ml water

The recipes in the book include butter or milk etc which are totally unnecessary.
Pen Pusher

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #30 on: 23 March, 2020, 07:29:21 pm »
The recipes in the book include butter or milk etc which are totally unnecessary.

Depends what you mean by 'necessary'. A basic loaf of bread requires nothing more than flour and water (even yeast is arguably not necessary). But you can't make a brioche without eggs and butter.

Enriching dough does affect the texture and flavour, so it's largely a matter of personal taste. Fat also improves the bread's keeping qualities.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

ian

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #31 on: 23 March, 2020, 07:32:58 pm »
I always add oil, otherwise the bread goes stale quickly, along with a smidge of ascorbic acid. Milk makes for a slightly denser texture in my experience, I usually add a splash.

I never add any sugar though.

caerau

  • SR x 3 - PBP fail but 1090 km - hey - not too bad
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #32 on: 23 March, 2020, 07:34:32 pm »
You can use baking soda too - instead of yeast* - to make that there Oirish soda bread :-)






*suddenly remembers he pilfered a kilo of bicarb from the lab  :D
It's a reverse Elvis thing.

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #33 on: 23 March, 2020, 08:06:47 pm »
There was a time when everyone had to have a Teasmade (TeasMaid? TeaseMaid?), which seems to have a similar rationale.

We have a vintage Goblin D25 Teasmade that we bought from a local chap who specialises in restoring them. It's really good! The later models and imitations are cheap tat and don't work, but ours is fantastic. Only problem is the kettle developed a leak so it's out of service right now.

Quote
If you want a machine to knead, a food processor does that extraordinarily efficiently and quickly and can be used for other things*.

I find the KitchenAid with dough hook attachment especially useful for very wet doughs.

Ah yes, the gobblin' teas maid.....

There's always one. My point (such as it is) is that the breadmaker is a big box for a single task, which for me isn't a worthwhile thang, but I can understand that others may see it differently.

As far as mechanised dough thrashing is concerned, trust me, nothing beats the Magimix (I have a Kenwood, not a KA, but it is the same difference). Brioche dough kneaded in 30 seconds. Not sure if any other processors have induction motors, but if they did it would probaly work the same.

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #34 on: 23 March, 2020, 08:09:45 pm »
I always add oil, otherwise the bread goes stale quickly, along with a smidge of ascorbic acid. Milk makes for a slightly denser texture in my experience, I usually add a splash.

I never add any sugar though.

I have taken to adding a bit of honey instead of sugar.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Woofage

  • Tofu-eating Wokerati
  • Ain't no hooves on my bike.
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #35 on: 23 March, 2020, 08:39:34 pm »
The recipes in the book include butter or milk etc which are totally unnecessary.

Depends what you mean by 'necessary'. A basic loaf of bread requires nothing more than flour and water (even yeast is arguably not necessary). But you can't make a brioche without eggs and butter.

Enriching dough does affect the texture and flavour, so it's largely a matter of personal taste. Fat also improves the bread's keeping qualities.

I was referring to basic bread. However, the "basic" recipes provided with the machine include ingredients other than flour, water, salt and yeast.

Beyond that everyone's free to add what they like. I make a mean onion bread, btw 8).
Pen Pusher

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #36 on: 23 March, 2020, 08:47:05 pm »
Like ian, I find oil is worthwhile for anti-staling and sugar is pointless. I've tried leaving out the salt and have concluded it's not essential but definitely worth adding too. Never thought about ascorbic acid; what's it for? Keeps it fresher?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

ian

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #37 on: 23 March, 2020, 08:54:39 pm »
Yes, I just break off a small piece of a vitamin tablet. It's an antioxidant (usually added as a 'flour improver' to store-bought bread) so soaks up the oxygen that would normally make the bread taste stale (that's a combination of drying out and slow oxidation).

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #38 on: 23 March, 2020, 09:02:00 pm »
Obvious, when it's explained.  ;) But I probably won't try it, cos the bread I make doesn't last that long.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Mrs Pingu

  • Who ate all the pies? Me
    • Twitter
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #39 on: 23 March, 2020, 09:07:41 pm »
Yes, I just break off a small piece of a vitamin tablet. It's an antioxidant (usually added as a 'flour improver' to store-bought bread) so soaks up the oxygen that would normally make the bread taste stale (that's a combination of drying out and slow oxidation).

Dan Lepard says that's also for making wholemeal bread less heavy:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/jun/10/how-to-bake-wholemeal-bread

Quote
Dan Lepard, meanwhile, has another secret weapon up his floury sleeve: vitamin C, which apparently counteracts the glutathione which is responsible for wholemeal bread's heavier texture. Half a 500mg tablet, crushed to a powder and added along with the yeast, is apparently sufficient to stop the pesky chemical in its tracks. It proves well-nigh impossible to find vitamin tablets that don't taste like children's sweets in my local area, so I plump for lemon flavour, on the basis that I've got some smoked salmon in the fridge crying out to be made into an open sandwich, and hope for the best. Thankfully it's undetectable in the end result, which has a nice open structure, and a near fluffy texture. Added vitamins also get the thumbs up.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #40 on: 23 March, 2020, 09:48:47 pm »
I always add oil, otherwise the bread goes stale quickly, along with a smidge of ascorbic acid. Milk makes for a slightly denser texture in my experience, I usually add a splash.

I never add any sugar though.

I have taken to adding a bit of honey instead of sugar.

Malt. Always malt in bread.

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #41 on: 23 March, 2020, 10:08:26 pm »
I use 2tbs of olive oil instead of butter, and also 2tbs of dried milk (Marvel) with 400gm of flour: either 200gm each of wholemeal and white, or 400gm of malted barley wholemeal.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #42 on: 23 March, 2020, 10:29:58 pm »
I always add oil, otherwise the bread goes stale quickly, along with a smidge of ascorbic acid. Milk makes for a slightly denser texture in my experience, I usually add a splash.

I never add any sugar though.

I have taken to adding a bit of honey instead of sugar.

Malt. Always malt in bread.
Soreen! :D
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
    • Stuff mostly about weather
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #43 on: 24 March, 2020, 01:34:13 am »
Panasonic SD-2500 for us.

It's our 3rd breadmaker. All have been Panasonics.

The first, bought in 2004, died after the drive for the paddle broke.

The second, we originally bought as a present for our daughter, but her kitchen was really too small to accommodate it so we bought it back off her when our first one died. That lasted OK until whoever started it going (not me!) left it too close to the edge of the worktop and it committed suicide by leaping over the edge.

We've had this one a year or two now. The bucket is the same shape as the previous two, but the non-stick seems to be vastly superior.

I follow the Panasonic recipes pretty unadventurously, although I never add sugar to loaves now. They just don't need it. Plenty of yeast food in flour.

The best reason yet for using a bread maker was a quote from the mother (or a friend of hers) of My Pal Mel.

Quote
I really like making bread. It always gets my finger nails so clean!
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

ian

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #44 on: 24 March, 2020, 09:44:36 am »
Yes, I just break off a small piece of a vitamin tablet. It's an antioxidant (usually added as a 'flour improver' to store-bought bread) so soaks up the oxygen that would normally make the bread taste stale (that's a combination of drying out and slow oxidation).

Dan Lepard says that's also for making wholemeal bread less heavy:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/jun/10/how-to-bake-wholemeal-bread

Quote
Dan Lepard, meanwhile, has another secret weapon up his floury sleeve: vitamin C, which apparently counteracts the glutathione which is responsible for wholemeal bread's heavier texture. Half a 500mg tablet, crushed to a powder and added along with the yeast, is apparently sufficient to stop the pesky chemical in its tracks. It proves well-nigh impossible to find vitamin tablets that don't taste like children's sweets in my local area, so I plump for lemon flavour, on the basis that I've got some smoked salmon in the fridge crying out to be made into an open sandwich, and hope for the best. Thankfully it's undetectable in the end result, which has a nice open structure, and a near fluffy texture. Added vitamins also get the thumbs up.

That I didn't know, but it's general addition to all store-bought breads. I guess that's why they call a 'flour improver.'

Boots sell unfavoured vitamin C tablets (you can probably buy the powder from somewhere, but it's probably not food grade).

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #45 on: 24 March, 2020, 10:08:57 am »
I have a jar of vit c powder in the cupboard. Useful for things like stopping fruit/veg discolouring after chopping if you're not going to use it immediately. I don't recall ever adding it to bread though.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #46 on: 24 March, 2020, 11:27:07 am »
(Sings)
Oh before the gods that made the gods were born
Yes before the gods that made the gods were born
Yes before the gods that made the gods woke up and made the gods
That's when Ken1 first told me
That's when Ken first told me
"Your breadmaker will get used only once!"

1: Former Half Man Half Biscuit guitarist Ken Hancock
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #47 on: 24 March, 2020, 12:13:59 pm »
Well, he's wrong.   :-)
Rust never sleeps

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
    • Stuff mostly about weather
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #48 on: 26 March, 2020, 10:16:08 pm »
Three or four times a week for the past 16 years or so...
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Breadmakers
« Reply #49 on: 27 March, 2020, 08:25:09 am »
Three or four times a week for the past 16 years or so...

But how often do you make bread?
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."