Wednesday, April 8, 2009

How To Make Your Own Bread Machine Mixes

By Marion Jones

Do you use bread machine mixes when you want to make yeast bread in your automated bread-making machine? If you do, why do you? Because it's easier? It is so simple to make gourmet bread quickly from easy-to-follow bread recipes and so much more variable too. If you use bread machine mixes you are limited to the bread machine mixes there are in the shops " no matter how many of them there are there.

However, a good bread machine recipe cookbook is far more flexible than bread machine mixes. A good bread machine recipe book will give you about 150 recipes coming from many countries, but it will also encourage you to change those recipes, encouraging you to be creative and develop your own style of bread.

Bread machine mixes are really quite restricting and you have no control over what goes into the bread machine mix either: preservatives, colouring, MSG, salt or who knows what. Yes, it says on the label, but you cant take them out, if you limit yourself to bread machine mixes.

Making bread is really quite simple. Or to put it correctly, the ingredients to making bread are really quite simple. To make a very basic loaf of bread, you only need: flour, water, yeast, sugar, salt and fat or oil. The hard part about making bread is the mixing. It can take four hours to mix the bread mixture together; to wait for it to rise; to knead it; wait for it to prove; knead it again and cook it.

So, if you have a bread making machine you can automate the hard bread mixing, proving, kneading cycle and if you have a bread-making cookbook you will be provided with recipes to guide and inspire you.

What could be easier? You look in the bread-making machine cookbook for an appetizing recipe; you put the household ingredients into the bread mixing bowl of the bread machine and you put the yeast into a time-release container on top of the bread machine; set the timer and just go about your daily routine or even go to sleep!

The bread making machine will stir the ingredients and consult the timer. Our bread-making machine has a timer that can be set for sixteen-hours in advance. That means that, if you want your gourmet, yeast bread ready for, say, 7:30 AM, the bread-making machine will mix the flour, water, salt oil and sugar at once, then add the yeast at say, 5 AM, knead, prove and bake the bread and ring the alarm at 7:30 to let you know that your gourmet food is waiting for you.

Except that you wont need the alarm to let you know that. The aroma of freshly-baked bread will permeate your house and you will be very much aware of the fact that your bread making machine is just about ready to serve one of the best loaves of bread youve ever had in your life! And you will never ever look for bread machine mixes again. Youll be overflowing with ideas for your own bread machine mixes in no time at all and youll be giving bread away as presents so that you can try out your next very own bread machine mixture.

Bread machine mixes " why bother with them?

About the Author:

No comments: