Why I’m NOT Buying Bread at the Store Any More & (Why you need a bread maker)!

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Years ago I received an Oster Bread machine, and I loved how easy it made it to mix up dough, but I could never get the bread to bake without collapsing. It was very annoying, as kneading bread is my least favorite part of making bread, and I liked how simple a bread machine made it to have fresh baked bread everyday. I mean a fresh loaf with about 5 minutes of work on my part is a dream. Alas I felt it wasn’t meant to be for us, and once I got my KitchenAid, the bread machine sat on a shelf collecting dust. And we went back to buying store bought bread.

But I guess I wasn’t exactly ready to give up on my ​bread machine, because it is one of the things that made the move with us to Georgia. And with the prices of groceries rising everyday, it seemed like a good time to pull it out and give it another go. I mean millions of others use bread machines to make great loaves of bread, I knew I could too.  Plus now we’re more in the country and farther from stores so it makes running to the store for bread a big hassle. If I could just make a loaf every night of the next day, it’s less time consuming and more economical!

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I scoured the internet for a good bread machine recipe that would use All Purpose (AP) flour because that’s what I’ve got. I found a couple recipes that I have been tweaking to get a great loaf of everyday sandwich bread. This is the perfect recipe for people who are too busy to baby dough, but still want fresh baked bread. And I will totally recommend you get a bread maker because it makes my life so easy!
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Bread makers are really good at developing the gluten in doughs, they’ve got the kneading rest ratios down PAT! And can also make sweet breads (like banana and pumpkin), jams, mix together your pizza dough, and make a great sandwich loaf in the third of the amount of time it usually takes to make bread!
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Bread makers are really good at developing the gluten in doughs, they’ve got the kneading rest ratios down PAT! And can also make sweet breads (like banana and pumpkin), jams, mix together your pizza dough, and make a great sandwich loaf in the third of the amount of time it usually takes to make bread!
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Click on the recipe card for a printable pdf.

Some tips for using a bread maker:

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• Most bread makers require the liquid ingredients first, but this doesn’t include the sugar, which is often mixed with the liquids in other baking recipes.
• Carefully add your flour to the top of the liquids so you have two layers; the bottom wet ingredients and the top dry ingredients. It sounds more complicated than it is, I just gently shake the flour onto the top of the liquids, and it doesn’t mix together yet. 
• Put the yeast in last. Make a little well in the center of the flour and pour your yeast in there. You don’t want the yeast to touch the liquid until the machine starts mixing everything.
• Fill your bread pan while it’s out of the machine so you avoid spilling ingredients inside the machine. You can then gently place it back in the machine once all the ingredients are in the pan.
• During the second kneading cycle I like to check if all the flour has mixed into the dough, if there is some on the sides I use a small spatula to scrape it off, and let the dough ball pick it up to mix in.
• To get the hook out of the loaf once it’s done baking, I use a metal chopstick to gently ease the hook out.

It’s really easy to use a bread maker so don’t be intimidated! And once you get more comfortable with it, you can experiment and try new recipes.
Have you used a bread maker before? What do you like about it?

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