Bread Making Machines: Bread Machine Mixes
Are bread machine mixes any good? Yes, some of them are, but the problem with all bread machine mixes is that they limit your choice and discourage your creative talents. That may sound a little harsh, but think about it for a minute. If you rely on bread machine mixes you can only make the bread for which you can find a bread machine mix and you can only put the bread machine mix in the bowl and switch the bread making machine on. You are not encouraged to alter the bread machine mix for fear that it won’t work.
OK, what is the alternative? Well, the old-fashioned recipe book, of course! Not just any old recipe book, but a special bread making machine recipe book. Bread making is a very easy, but very tiresome process. The ingredients are ubiquitous, everyday, household items: water, flour, yeast, salt, sugar and oil. You most certainly have those items in your kitchen with the possible exception of yeast, which can be bought in any super store for very little money and it keeps for ages.
And you know what happens when you follow a recipe, don’t you? You’ve read the recipe through and you know you have everything in the kitchen, but when the recipe calls for, say, currants, you open the cupboard door and see that you don’t have any currants – they were sultanas! Oh, well you think, they’ll do. You make do. You experiment. You are developing your skills and creativity. Bread making mixes cannot do that for you.
A good bread making machine cookbook will have well over 100 recipes coming from several countries and you will become really enthusiastic about trying out the different ones. Have you ever eaten Welsh bread – Bara Brith? Or Amish bread? Jalapeno bread or onion bread? Cranberry bread is lovely too, but one of my favourites is Brazil Nut Bread – absolutely scrumptious.
The fact is that you may not find recipes for all these breads in one place, but if you have a reference point, like a bread recipe cookbook, you can |begin|start off by using already tried and tested gourmet bread recipes and gradually concoct your own – sometimes you don’t have everything.
I once made a |really great|fantastic loaf by adding all of the leftover vegetables from my Sunday meal. It was delicious, however I could never quite make the same loaf again, 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 ever give you that, will they? And bread machine mixes are fairly 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. I’m sure you see what I mean.
Bread machine mixes are not only limited but limiting too. Furthermore, a bread making machine is a great way to use up leftovers. I have added meat and fruit in my gourmet bread many times. My guiding principle is: if it’ll go in a sandwich it’ll go in the dough – like an Indian stuffed paratha or stuffed naan bread.
Don’t waste your money buying bread machine mixes – instead be creative with a bread machine recipes cookbook.
