My bread machine

I bought myself a bread machine at Good Will. I had done some research online to limit my options and went with one that I hadn’t heard of. Of course it doesn’t have it’s manual, and while I have tried to find it on the web, I am not having much luck. But, I have found such wonderful sites for what I call bread machining! The Hill Billy Housewife has a wonderful start off page. She has so much info on her site, I use it on a weekly basis. Then I found this site that is for all bread machine users. Absolutely fantastic! There is a whole beginners section that goes through the machine, the dough, the bread, step by step. Never mind an email list to ask questions, share recipes and all sorts of other good stuff. All the information I need right at my fingertips.

My loaves are okay. That’s it, just okay. But I know that my first problem is that I am not using bread flour, just the old cheapy all purpose junk. So I went on an explore on the Internet to King Arthur Flour and fell absolutely in love. I just love a company that is so complete in their knowledge of their product and stands behind it. There is just so much for me to learn.

I thought this would be a good start because our family just loves bread. Well, Jesse did work at a bakery for 16 years! When we were first married, he always brought home bread and I had never tasted anything so wonderful. My mom always bought grocery store bread and sometimes grocery store bakery rolls and bagels. I just didn’t realize what a difference their was.

Our family favorite used to be their french baguette, but it isn’t the same anymore. It is much better than any grocery store bakery, but not as powerful as it was in the old days. Now my mission is to reproduce that glorious bread at home. While I was trying to make it by hand, I realized I just don't have the time to learn the art of making bread by hand right now. I am lucky if I get all of our regular meals cooked! The bread machine cost 20$ and I feel it will be a great learning tool.

I am off to a slow start, but I am learning so very much.