inspiration deux

tyna — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 19:18:32 +0000

58-Minute Expressbake® Breadmaker

Features

Versatile – makes 1 lb., 1.5 lb, or 2 lb. Family-size horizontal loaves
Make a variety of all-natural breads with 18 bread settings & 3 crust color selections
Easy to use manual with over 50 recipes included
Come home to fresh baked bread with the 13 hour delay bake timer
Simple and easy to use with 3-step programming
Create fresh bread fast with 58 minute Express Bake cycle
Serve the bread when you are ready with the 60 minute keep warm features
Add fruits & nuts with ease with audible add in signal
Modern oval design offers large glass view window, removable lid, non-stick aluminum bread pan, and cool touch exterior

I want this!

how stuff works: bread + bread machine

tyna — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:47:20 +0000

video: bread making

Bread Basics

If you pick up a slice of bread and examine it closely, you can see that it is full of air holes. This makes it spongy and soft. You will also see that bread is moist. If you let a slice of bread sit out on the counter for a day, you will realize just how moist fresh bread is!

Bakers use two simple facts of life to create soft, spongy, moist bread:

First, they use the fact that yeast (a single-cell fungi) will eat sugar, and from the sugar create alcohol and carbon dioxide gas as waste products. The carbon dioxide gas created by yeast is what gives bread its airy texture, and the alcohol, which burns off during baking, leaves behind an important component of bread’s flavor.
Second, wheat flour, if mixed with water and kneaded, becomes very elastic. The flour-and-water mixture in bread becomes stretchy like a balloon because of a protein in wheat known as gluten. Gluten gives bread dough the ability to capture the carbon dioxide produced by yeast in tiny flour balloons.

How does a bread machine work?

[the basics]

Bread machines are essential motors connected to a drive shaft, which moves a kneading blade inside a bread pan. A thermostat regulates the temperature inside the machine for rising and baking while a microchip contains programs for the various cycles that the individual bread machine performs.

How Does a Bread Maker Work?

Introduction of the Ingredients

A bread maker, overall, does the exact same thing that someone making bread by hand would do. The obvious advantage is that it is all done for you without much effort or thought. The most important (and virtually only) step in how a bread maker works is the introduction of the ingredients into the bread maker. Bread making is more like a science experiment than cooking because if you don’t put the exact right amount of a certain ingredient into the recipe, the whole thing won’t work. Make sure you measure out the exact amount of flour, water, yeast, salt and any other ingredient before you put it into the bread maker to ensure it produces a satisfactory end product.

Mixing and Kneading

Once the ingredients are in, a program is selected for the bread maker to follow. Most bread makers come with a certain number of set programs that are available at the touch of a button. The timing may be slightly different, but they all follow the same basic series of commands, the first being mixing and kneading. The bread maker will start by mixing the ingredients with its dough hook for a short amount of time, probably around two minutes. It will then let the dough rest for ten to fifteen minutes to develop it’s gluten, then the dough hook will begin turning again, this time kneading the dough. This will last for five or six minutes.

Rising

The thermostat in your bread machine will raise the temperature slightly around the dough in your machine, allowing the bread to rise for the appropriate amount of time. Once it is done rising, the machine will immediately go into baking mode.

Baking

After rising, the microchip that controls the thermostat in your bread maker will, once again, raise the temperature. This time, though, it will be baking your bread. Your bread will bake for the predetermined amount of time programmed by you, and when it is done baking, the machine will shut itself off. Your bread will be cooled and ready to eat in thirty minutes to an hour.

tynabelle » bread maker