Bread Machine Tip

I always wondered why my bread machine loaves were of such poor quality as compared to making bread the old-fashioned way. I came about learning what the problem was purely by accident.

When you bake bread the old-fashioned way, you are given a range for flour, i.e., 5-6 cups, which takes into account variables like temperature and humidity on the day you bake. You add just enough to get the proper texture in the dough, which when hands-on, you can feel.

I always thought there was something wrong with my machine since I invariably would produce loaves that had hard crusts and dense, dry-ish textures, so I was going to buy a Wolfgang Puck machine because of the design and many rave reviews.

Well, it was from reading those reviews that I discovered there was nothing wrong with my machine; it was user error. The caveat that most experienced bread machine users gave to people who had disappointing results was, measure accurately. I confess this is something I never did from my hands-on bread baking experience.

Then it hit me--the machine is a controlled environment, more or less, so the variable amounts of flour given for more traditional methods doesn't hold.

I baked the standard loaf of cinnamon raisin bread that I've done a few times in the past, but this time, I actually measured the flour and did not use the dip-and-sweep method (which a reviewer cautioned NOT to use), but lightly spooned the flour in the measuring cup and leveled it off.

The bread came out perfectly! Lovely texture and nice crust! So a little reading saved me some money!