Bread Machine 2

I bought the bread machine, and made my first lovely loaf with it.  I love the smell of bread baking.  However, I messed up my calculations yesterday.  The shop had two machines, one was my lovely Panasonic for $279, yes $100 more than I posted, still that's only another 40 days to pay it off by not buying bread.  So I bought it, the other one, for $190 was a Sunbeam with the same silly spring thing as the old Sanyo, so no way I was I going to buy it.  Also when I take into account making pizza for tea once a week, the savings on pizza bases is about $6, so that really cuts the days down to 83 days till its paid for itself.  Not bad when I plan on using it daily for another 5 years or so.

Hand-made Bread

We've been eating homemade bread for years, bread machine bread. On Friday I set the machine up to cook bread, and came back to check on it to find a strange noise. The machine was broken, an essential part, made of plastic had snapped into 4 pieces, so no more bread from the machine, unless we can get a replacement part. I had a bit of a quandary, the ingredients were in and there was no way to separate them, so it was either throw out he flour or made the bread by hand. I had a go at hand made bread, and it wasn't bad, didn't raise very much though. So I got my cook book down and had another try from scratch. its not that hard, and its quite fun, but it does take time.

It only takes about 20 minutes of hands on work, but it takes at least 5 hours from start to finish. First you spend about one minute setting the yeast for activation, come back in 30 minutes and its ready to use. Then 10 minutes kneading the dough, set it to rest for 1 1/2 - 2 hours depending on the room temp. Then 5 minutes to shape the loaf, and set it to rise for 3 or more hours. Then 30 minutes to bake, so a minute to put it in the oven an a minute to take it out. Not much actual work, but you do need to be there. Still I can have a shower while the yeast activates, and I can take Possum to the park, shops or to visit friends while the dough raises, and again while the bread rises, so I don't have to be at home while the bread is getting ready to cook. I do however, need to pop home at intervals, so going to work wouldn't fit.

However, I'm enjoying it, an its the only way we can have home made bread for a while, as I can't afford to replace the machine for a while.