[ck2day]

Help me please.  After alot of dithering I bought a bread machine at the weekend (I usually do it by hand).  Religously read through the instructions twice and made sure I knew what I was doing before giving it a go on sunday evening.  The result was less than inspiring, more like a lump of concrete than bread and not at all bread like.  the top was not even brown, well one corner was!

I had another go last night and it was slightly better but not much.  I followed the basic bread recipe down to the last letter and all the ingredients were fresh and put in in the right order, but it still wasn't very bread like.

Before I get totally miffed with it and take it back, has anyone any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong.

Claire

[Fenland Girl]

Not sure what's going wrong, but it might be worth experimenting with the recipe - different flours need slightly different amounts of water. Does your machine have a light/dark crust option? I find I always need mine on the darkest setting to achieve a reasonably brown crust. I have to admit I use my breadmaker more for dough-making and then bake in a conventional oven - much nicer bread but saves the tedious kneading!

[Poolfield2]

Try this recipe, it has been successful in 5 different makes of bread maker

The cup measure in mine measures 10fl oz (1/2 pint)

1 cup room temp water
3 cups flour (obviously strong for bread making)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbs dried milk powder
1 tbs butter
1 1/2 tsp active dried yeast


Make sure everything is at room temp and that the salt yeast and water are all separated. You can alter the crust setting to dark but it never comes up as good as an oven baked loaf.

What make did you buy?

[Alex 98]

My Sister had one for a wedding present
It blew up
Imagine the mess

mind you, if you've seen me make bread................... :?  :?

[jannie]

if the flour is not good it can have that effect  :? i only use canadian as i find thats the best  :?

[gardengran]

i gave up on mine as the only good results i found were with a bread mix from makro which i thought was expensive and also a long way to travel to our nearest one...im back to making my bread by hand now  

[Poolfield2]

I agree with jannie that canadian flour is good, it has a high gluten content but even hovis bread flour makes good bread in my machine and my machine is only a cheapy

[compostqueen]

my machine isn't very good and I've found that the bread mixes work best  

[ck2day]

Try this recipe, it has been successful in 5 different makes of bread maker

The cup measure in mine measures 10fl oz (1/2 pint)

1 cup room temp water
3 cups flour (obviously strong for bread making)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbs dried milk powder
1 tbs butter
1 1/2 tsp active dried yeast


Make sure everything is at room temp and that the salt yeast and water are all separated. You can alter the crust setting to dark but it never comes up as good as an oven baked loaf.

What make did you buy?

Poolfield, thankyou for your recipe. I used it last night and the bread turned out fine. I don't know what I did wrong, maybe it was just beginners bad luck.  My brad machine is a Morphy Richards Fastbake.

Thankyou very much

Claire

[Skip]

The various dried yeast brands all have different potency.  You may need to experiment a little with each brand to see how much 'leavening' they provide.  This is the cause of most failures with breadmaking using the machines.  So, stick to the one brand of yeast to see how it works, then you will have a foolproof recipe that you can proudly share with others!

[Aidy]

I only now use Carrs flour, I have tried many yeasts but now only allinsons quick yeast. I had problems with dove cottage, so I emailed them and got a very good reply explaining what happens in the machine and how different yeasts react with flours. Some yeasts do not contian ascorbic acid which they need to rise properly and may need to be added, I discorverd that Alinsons has it already within the yeast.

EDIT: After your reply that i missed I too have a morphy richards but mine is the accents, one thing i did notice was the fast bake loafs were pretty dire, I use the french bread recipe, its longer but very tasty. Not sure if you have it on yours.

[Poolfield2]

ck so glad that recipe worked for you as well, it seems to be the one that works for those in despair of ever making decent bread in a machine  

[Heidi]

I also have the Morphy Richards Fastbake, and my first attempt was also like a large lump of concrete.  

However, I have persevered and haven't looked back!      All the loaves I've made since have been great and its saving me a small fortune on trips to the supermarket or bakers.

Hope you keep trying and have some success - nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread, although word of worning - don't make it just before you go to bed as like I discovered last night, I couldn't sleep due to the smell of luscious bread baking downstairs.  

[Aidy]

I also have the Morphy Richards Fastbake, and my first attempt was also like a large lump of concrete.  

However, I have persevered and haven't looked back!      All the loaves I've made since have been great and its saving me a small fortune on trips to the supermarket or bakers.

Hope you keep trying and have some success - nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread, although word of worning - don't make it just before you go to bed as like I discovered last night, I couldn't sleep due to the smell of luscious bread baking downstairs.  

I set mine up so its ready as I wake up, go down empty it then go and get showed etc, its a great way of getting you out of bed  

[wighty]

Our bread machine is fine,  IF you only let it do the mixing, proving and kneading.  If you set it to timer or let it carry on to bake it trips the switch and throws the house into darkness which is very frustrating.  We won it in the raffle at Christmas down the pub so don't worry about it sitting in the cupboard not earning it's keep.