Bread Machine Help

changepartners

I recently bought a bread maker in Aldi to have a regular source of fresh bread. It’s so easy to use and clean, it’s great! The problem is I haven’t managed to make a nice loaf of bread yet!

On my first attempt I used a Tesco bread mix, it was ok but not particularly nice and a bit undercooked.

The second time I followed the recipe in the manual to make a simple white loaf. It just wasn’t edible really and I think it was undercooked. Im not sure if it was bad recipe, bad cooking or both. The cooking time wasn’t given in the manual so I tried the medium length setting. The bottom was sort of collapsed and indented but the top was fine.

Can anyone give me any advice on some simple, nice white loaf to cook? I really don’t know if the bread maker is any good until I figure out if me or the machine is the problem1

Any help greatly appreciated.

Alun

Were you using proper strong bread flour, as opposed to ordinary plain flour? Odlums do one that you can get in Tesco.

Regarding the cooking time, on my Panasonic that's basically governed by the size (medium, large and extra-large) and type (white, wholemeal etc.) of loaf and you can't program the time independently of that.

AlbionCat

Hi

I also use a breadmaker - in my case a 10 year old Morphy Richards, but I have found a few tips:-

1. Definitely agree with Alun - make sure you are using strong bread flour

2. You could try putting the ingredients into the pan in the order they are listed in the manual recipe - in my manual recipe it goes Water> Milk powder>Oil>Sugar>Salt>Flour>Yeast. Yeast should not touch the salt intially as the salt kills the yeast. Also make sure you use the Active /Fast Yeast (Box of 8 sachets) and make sure it is in date. I use Aldi bread flour and Active yeast and there are no complaints here.

3. I also found that I could use room temp water and let the machine bring it up to the relevant temp - anything hotter and my bread didn't work

4. Check/read the manual - usually breadmakers have pretimed menus or programs for the different types of bread. For instance a white loaf for me is menu 1 (loaf size 1.5lb / light crust) which gives me 2hr 53min of Boards browsing before I go and wrestle it from the pan. If I make a multigrain loaf, it is menu 3 (3hr 15mins) and Jam is Menu 7.

5. Also make sure that your bread machine is situated in a constant temperature area whilst cooking. I had mine in the utility room, but opening/closing the back door affected the bread and it sometimes fell. I also found moving/knocking the machine would cause a bread to fall, so if you have nosy children who cant wait for the fresh bread...

Hope this helps,

Happy breading

AC

changepartners

Thanks. I used plain flour. It must be the problem.

Alun

changepartners wrote: »

Thanks. I used plain flour. It must be the problem.

That would do it certainly. Strong bread flour contains more gluten which gives the loaf texture and stops it collapsing.

Point 2 above is also important, i.e. to put the ingredients in the right order. the later ones aren't so critical, but certainly yeast first, then flour and then all the rest on top, with water last.

changepartners

Alun wrote: »

That would do it certainly. Strong bread flour contains more gluten which gives the loaf texture and stops it collapsing.

Point 2 above is also important, i.e. to put the ingredients in the right order. the later ones aren't so critical, but certainly yeast first, then flour and then all the rest on top, with water last.

The manual for mine says yeast last to keep it away from the water.

pwurple

I'm not familiar with the aldi machines, but how long is the 'rest' period on it? That is to bring all the ingredients to room temp. I find yeast works better when everything is a bit warmer than irish room temp! So I use warm water. Not boiling. If you have boiling water, mix it with cold water in your measuring jug until you have warmish water.

changepartners

I used this recipe today and made a fairly decent loaf with it, I think it just needs to cook a bit longer. I also might add more sugar or something to give a bit more flavour.

http://www.food.com/recipe/throw-away-the-bread-machine-instructions-white-bread-339905?mode=metric&scaleto=12.0&st=null

Alun

changepartners wrote: »

The manual for mine says yeast last to keep it away from the water.

Well that would depend on when you put the water in

For my Panasonic it's always yeast first, then flour, all other dry ingredients and then water last.

I too use warm water from the tap.

Alun

changepartners wrote: »

I used this recipe today and made a fairly decent loaf with it, I think it just needs to cook a bit longer. I also might add more sugar or something to give a bit more flavour.

http://www.food.com/recipe/throw-away-the-bread-machine-instructions-white-bread-339905?mode=metric&scaleto=12.0&st=null

I wouldn't add add more sugar, that'll create more CO2 bubbles when it reacts with the yeast and make a loaf with too much air in it which will collapse when it cooks. I'd just stick with the standard recipes in the instruction book if I were you.

BTW LOL at 29.59ml sugar in the ingredients list!

pwurple

Alun wrote: »

I too use warm water from the tap.

Never use warm water from the tap for cooking food, or for drinking. It's not safe to ingest. I just changed my hot water cylinder a few weeks ago and the sediment would scare you. Warm water from a tap contains more dissolved contaminents than cold water. Lead, copper from your pipes, all sorts of nasties.

Boiled water from a cold water tap only for cooking.