Second day of bread making

Today I'm trying a "Light Whole Wheat Bread" recipe found in the 1998 Salton/Maxim Housewares, Inc. Booklet. The "original" recipe was written as follows:

Light Whole Wheat Bread

Add all ingredients to Bread Pan in the order given.

Makes a 1-1/2 lb. Loaf Makes a 2 lb. Loaf

1-1/4 cup warm water 1-1/2 cup warm water

1 Tbl. Vegetable oil 1 Tbl. Vegetable oil

2 Tbl. Honey 3 Tbl. Honey

1/2 tsp. Salt 1/2 tsp. Salt

1-1/2 cup whole wheat flour 2-1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup bread flour 1-1/4 cup bread flour

1/4 cup gluten 1/3 cup gluten

1-1/2 tsp. Active dry yeast 2 tsp. Active dry yeast

(Missing from this photo is the yeast)

Cooking Directions:

I used the recipe for the 2 lb loaf, exchanging the Tablespoon of Vegetable oil for a Tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Mostly because my oil choices on hand were evoo, peanut, sunflower and sesame. I put everything into the bread maker in the order it's listed above. Look at the directions for your bread maker, as they may suggest adding ingredients in a different order than mine does. I used the bread maker's Whole Wheat setting for a 2 lb loaf, and used the "Light" crust setting per mom's suggestion.

My Impression of the finished bread:

This came out great! It rose higher than I expected, you can almost cut one slice in half and make two slices out of it. The texture was about the same as a good quality store bought whole wheat loaf, but way cheaper. This one will be one I make on a regular basis to replace what we would usually buy at the grocery store.

I really like the “Everything” Bagels, and want to either find or create a bread recipe that has the same flavor combination. My wife is wanting some type of Cheesy Bread. Guess those will be coming up soon. If you know of a good recipe for these or any other breads you think I might want to try, please let me know.

As you can see from the photo of the ingredients, I like shopping at HEB. As far as I know, they are only located in Texas. Too bad for the rest of the world. They have great selection and prices. The one I shop at has a bulk food section where you can by as much or as little of all sorts of items, including the gluten I used in this recipe, and the rolled oats I used in yesterday's recipe.

Until next time, Happy Baking! And be sure to tell all your friends about my blog!

Jerry

My First Attempt at Making Bread in the Bread Machine

My mother was recently downsizing her belongings, and gave me her Kenmore Bread Machine. Today, I'm posting about my first try at using the bread machine.

I had a couple of bananas which were turning a little too brown for my wife to eat, so I put them in the freezer to use in making smoothies. But, since I now had a bread machine, I decided to try making some Banana Bread. As you'll see, I'm not really one to "follow the recipe" when cooking. I almost always add, remove or change something. I like to experiment and make each recipe a little more personal.

My apologies for not taking a photo of all the ingredients I used to make this first bread, and also for not taking photos of the finished product until my wife & I had already eaten several slices. Being a photographer, you'd think I would have been more on top of that. Hopefully I'll get a better memory in the future.

I made a modified version of the Banana Bread Recipe from:

http://www.bread-machine-recipes.com/recipes/banana_bread.html

I used:

Ingredients:

---------------------------------------------------- 1 1/2 cup bread flour 1 1/2 cup wheat flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 md ripe bananas (previously frozen) 1/4 cup honey 1/4 cup warm water 1 egg 1/4 cup apple sauce (I always use apple sauce instead of oil when making cakes, so I thought I'd try the same thing on the bread) 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 cup rolled oats (My wife is not a big fan of nuts in her bread, so I thought the oats might add a little nuttiness without the actual nuts. In hind-site, I should have added them later in the process so they held together better.) 1 package yeast

Cooking Directions:

I put all wet ingredients in the cooking pan except the water. Then added all dry ingredients with the yeast being added last. Then added the warm water on top of the yeast. I let this stand for 5 minutes before turning on the bread maker. I used the standard setting for fruit and nut breads with the crust brownness set to medium. Total precessing/cooking time was 3hrs 35mins.

My Impression of the resulting bread:

The bread came out spongy, but a bit dry to my taste. The crust also seemed a bit too crusty to me. It also didn't have a very strong banana flavor.

I talked to my mom about this, and she said she always set her crust brownness to light, because to her, even the medium setting always made it too firm. So, I'll be taking mom's advice, and use the "light" crust setting from now on.

And perhaps, using another banana would give it more banana flavor, but then again, I'm not sure what that would do to the consistency of the finished loaf.

Happy Baking, and I'd love to have some feedback, at least to know if anyone is reading my blog. Until tomorrow,

Jerry