Thursday, June 11, 2009

Should You Use Bread Machine Mixes In Bread Making Machines?

By Marion Jones

Do I think that bread machine mixes are useful? Yes, some of them are, but the snag with all bread machine mixes is that they place limitations on your choice and do not encourage your creative talents. That may sound odd, but think about it for a while. If you depend on bread machine mixes you can only make the bread for which you can buy a bread machine mix and you can only tip the bread machine mix into the bowl and switch on the bread making machine. You are definitely not likely to alter the bread machine mix for fear that it won't work.

OK, what is the alternative? Well, the old-fashioned cookbook, of course! Not any old cookbook, but a specialized bread making machine recipe book. Bread making is a very easy, but rather tedious process. The ingredients are everyday, household items: water, flour, yeast, salt, sugar and oil. You already have those items in your really great loaf by adding all of the leftover vegetables from my Sunday dinner. It was delicious, however I could never quite reproduce it, because I did not write down the proportions of the vegetables. I could only remember that I had added green beans, potatoes and sweet corn in it!

Bread machine mixes will never in a million years provide that, will they? Furthermore bread machine mixes are relatively expensive compared to the cost of five kilos of flour. I always vary the ingredients too: honey instead of sugar, milk instead of water, olive oil or butter instead of just corn oil. Rock salt instead of sea salt or visa versa. You get the picture.

Bread machine mixes are limited and limiting. A bread making machine is a great way to use up leftovers. I have even put meat and fruit in my gourmet bread. My principle is: if it'll go in a sandwich it'll go in the dough - like an Indian stuffed paratha or stuffed naan bread.

Stop buying bread machine mixes - they are a waste of money. Instead be creative with a bread machine recipes cookbook.

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