sisters, resurrect thy bread machine

Friends, I am not sure how many of you actually have a bread machine but my guess is probably a good 50% of you do. If you got married sometime in '90s, you may have received at least one of these appliances and to date it has probably been used a total of five times, and since then has been gathering dust in the recesses of your kitchen cabinets, or even worse, your garage (gasp). Worse, it's quite possible that you gave it away to Goodwill or sold it in a garage sale for 50 cents just to get it gone and regain the volume that has otherwise been occupied by said bread machine...

If you still have it, I am here to sing it's praises so that you will also be able to benefit from it's use. As I continue my quest for a more economical kitchen and look for ways to cut out processed food while decreasing my overall grocery bill, I have discovered that the bread machine can help me achieve that goal.

My biggest complaint with the bread machine has always been that the "non stick" sides really aren't non stick. Let's face it, one of the most gratifying aspects of breadmaking is the beautiful loaf appearance that is achieved by baking bread in the oven... not to mention the nice crusty edges and beautiful shape that the loaf takes... Having to DIG the bread out of the pan is not much fun and is a great deterrent. It kills one of the key sensory aspects of breadmaking... form and texture. Additionally, the hole that is left in the bottom from that metal attachment used to knead the bread is unsightly and just gross.

I decided that I wanted to start making my own bread to save money and give my family something more healthful to make their sandwiches with, but the extremely manual process of breadmaking was just a turnoff. So, I dug out the old bread machine and decided to marry the two processes... use the dough setting on the machine but bake the bread in the oven.

It worked... BEAUTIFULLY!

If you have 5-10 minutes, you can make a beautiful loaf of bread. It's that simple. You just add the ingredients to the pan in your machine, hit the dough setting and walk away. When the dough is done, I put the dough in the oiled loaf pan and put it right in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. The loaf had a BEAUTIFUL rise and is incredibly delicious. I'm sharing my recipe and pictures below.

Last night I also tried the dough setting for the whole wheat pizza crust and it turned out wonderfully as well!

How making your own bread saves you money:
One bag of whole wheat flour costs about $2.50...
One jar of bread machine yeast (Kroger brand) costs about $3...

Out of one bag of flour, you'll get about five loaves of bread. Given that you can't buy a loaf of whole grain bread these days for any less than $2.50 on sale, for five loaves, you save $7... now if you try to buy bread of the same quality (an artisan bread, for example - $4 to $5 a pop), you are saving a significantly larger amount of money.

So, resurrect that bread machine, friends, and you won't be sorry!

Whole Wheat Bread
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 3/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup honey
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil (vegetable oil or olive oil)
1 cup warm water (105 - 120 degrees)
1/3 cup milk

Add all ingredients to machine and start on dough setting. Towards last few minutes of cycle, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Once cycle is complete, oil a bread loaf pan. Shape the dough into a loaf/cylinder shape and place in pan. I let mine sit for a few minutes before putting in the oven. Bake for 40 minutes. Let rest until cool before removing from pan - I used a rubber spatula to gently separate from the sides of the loaf pan.

If you want to make it the traditional way see this site.