Bread baked in a Bread Maker

OK, I am back. During May it was simply too hot for me to spend a long time in the kitchen. I also had visitors which means less cooking and more going out for dinner.

But one thing I did was baking bread. Last year I bought a bread making machine and ever since I am experimenting to get the perfect bread. Sometimes more successful than others.

The reason for me buying the bread making machine was that most of the bread you get here in India is soft crust bread and the variety is rather limited. Another reason is that most household ovens available here do not generate enough heat for baking bread.

I must confess I was a bit naive thinking that I just follow the recipes stated in the recipe booklet and get the perfect bread. I completely ignored the fact that flour here has different parameters than in Germany or Europe. To start with the gluten content. The same goes for the yeast. Not to forget the surrounding temperature and humidity.

The 1^st few trials were edible but not great. That's when I started turning to my cookbooks for help. I spend days reading about it and trying out what could be the right solution.

One thing that worked really well is to replace one quarter of the flour with hard wheat semolina as it increases the gluten content. I also realised that plain whole wheat flour gives me better results and taste than the mulitgrain-whole wheat flour which is available from several brands.

I am still trying to figure out while the bread doesn't rise well when I let the normal program run through but I guess that has to do with the kneading right before the baking process starts. Because if I control the kneading and rising time by switching the machine on and off the result is much better.

The best result so far I got with the following recipe. This is for my Kenwood Rapid Bake Bread Maker and a dough volume of 900g. Different machines have different volumes so you might have to adjust the recipe to your own machine.

For the dough I dissolved 7g dry yeast in 300ml warm water and pour it in the baking pan. To it I added 1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil and 50ml plain yoghurt. In a bowl I mix 250g plain wheat flour with 125g hard wheat semolina, 125g whole wheat flour, 4tablespoons unsweetened skimmed milk powder, 1 ½ teaspoons salt and 1 tablespoon sugar. I add the flour mixture to the liquids in the baking pan and set the machine for 900g French bread with medium crust. This means on my machine that the dough will be kneaded for 20 minutes.

After the kneading process I switch the machine off for the next 1 ½ hours to let the dough rise. Than I start it again on the same setting and let the dough be kneaded for another 20 minutes. After the kneading I switch the the machine off for 1 hour to let the dough rise a second time.

Now I set the machine on 900g baking for 70 minutes. After the baking I leave the bread for 30-60minutes in the machine before taking it out and letting it cool down.

If you don't have a bread maker but a god oven that heats up to a minimum of 220°C you can make the bread too. Just knead all ingredients in a big bowl and neat it well. While the dough is rising cover the bowl with a wet towel to avoid that the dough dries up. Than form a round loaf or put the dough in a baking dish for baking. The oven must be well pre-heated.

This bread was gone so fast that I couldn't take a picture of it but I promise I will post a picture as soon as the next bread comes out of the machine. And I will go on experimenting until I get the perfect bread so expect some more recipes to come.

Enjoy and have fun in the kitchen!

Love

Carola


As promised here some pictures of the home baked bread. This is a 700g loaf.