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Health & Fitness

Baking Tips from a Non-Baker

My pathetic journey to successful bread machine baking and what I learned along the way.

I am a self-professed non-baker. I can sautee'. I can grill. I can roast stuff. But when it comes to baking, I've always been extremely intimidated and the perfectionist in me was afraid to fail (not to mention afraid to waste money on such failures). It took me years to finally try my first loaf of bread, and guess what? It was a failure of epic proportions, just as I had predicted. Not to be defeated, I tried again. Another fail.

Then, I figured I should try a bread machine. How could I possibly mess that up since it does all the work for me? We got one for our wedding and then there it sat in our basement for another few years. One day, I dusted it off, located the instructions, loaded the ingredients from one of the recipes in the instructions and voila! An inedible brick of compacted flour. To quote my loving husband, “I wish we had a catapult, 'cause that baby would do some damage.”

I was frustrated, but determined to make a &$%# loaf of bread! I read the instructions cover to cover and it turns out that you have to add the ingredients in a specific order rather than just throwing it all in there and pressing start. Who knew? After that, I was successfully making bread on a regular basis and even messing with the ingredients a little to make different kids of loaves.

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I was baking so much bread in my little machine that I started researching bigger, better machines. If you read , you know how I feel about my current bread machine. It gets a lot of use because I really try to avoid buying store-bought bread. There's nothing like homemade bread and I like the fact that my kids get to eat fresh bread on a regular basis.

Some people think that a bread machine bread isn't homemade bread. That's like saying your dishes aren't actually clean unless you wash them by hand. Just because I'm not boring my brains out by kneading a hunk of dough for 15 minutes does not mean my bread isn't homemade. The machine kneads it, lets it rise and then bakes it! It's less work, but still very much homemade.

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In case you're considering dusting off your bread machine and giving it a whirl, here are some things I've learned that might help you from having to buy a catapult:

#1. Put the ingredients in exactly the order that the manufacturer suggests. Usually, you need to put the wet ingredients in first, then the dry ingredients and then the yeast. The whole point is for the yeast not to touch the wet stuff. Why? I have no idea, considering the machine starts mixing right away and, like, the yeast ends up touching the wet stuff right away. All I know is that you will get a brick if you do it any differently.

#2. Exact measurements are important, especially when it comes to the flour. Scooping the flour right out of the bag with the measuring cup compacts the flour. Instead, use a smaller measuring cup or a big spoon to sprinkle the flour into the appropriate measuring cup and level it with the back of a butter knife.

#3. Most machines will beep about 30 minutes into the kneading cycle to remind you to add dried fruit, nuts, etc. if you're making a sweet bread. Mine even beeps during the basic white/wheat settings. If you want a nice chunky cheese bread, start a basic white bread, then add about 4 ounces of cubed cheddar cheese when it beeps. If you add it sooner, it will be chopped up by the blade(s) and won't show up in the final product. Incidentally, chunky cheese bread is the only reason I started this whole baking thing in the first place.

#4. Bread machines aren't just for loaves of bread. You can make dinner rolls, pizza dough, pretzels, bagels, jelly rolls, donuts...all kinds of stuff. My Zojirushi can even make sourdough starters, jam and meatloaf!

If you haven't tried your bread machine or you have been thinking about getting one, I really hope you do. You won't be sorry. Bread machine baking is probably easier than you think and certainly faster than baking bread the old-fashioned way (it takes me less than five minutes to add my ingredients and press “start”).

Do you have any baking fails to share with this non-baker? I'd love to know that I'm not alone. Do you prefer bread machines or traditional baking?

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