Breadmaker???

Not to change the subject too much, but do you have any recipes you can share?? I have a breadman I got at Bed Bath and Beyond. I love it!

My first loaf of bread was a mess, but now it's pretty foolproof. It's much less difficult than things like cakes that require precise measurements. Once you have made a few loaves and your hands know how the loaf should feel, it's sort of self-correcting: If you have too little flour, more gets added during kneading. If you have too little yeast, you have to let it raise longer.

The basic recipe is flour, water, salt and yeast. (By law, that's all French bread can contain in France.) More salt makes a flakier crust, less salt makes the bread a little drier and chewier. You can add more stuff to make it interesting, but you don't need to.

Here's a recipe:

1/2 cup (125 ml) warm water, 120 degrees Fahrenheit
2 pkgs active dry yeast
2 cups (500 ml) whole milk
2 Tbsp (30 ml) salted butter
2 tsp (10 ml) salt
2 Tbsp (30 ml) granulated sugar
6 cups (1500 ml) flour -- approximate!

Two 9 inch loaf pans

Dissolve yeast in warm water in a big mixing bowl. While it dissolves, prepare other ingredients

Warm milk and butter until butter melts. Cool to approx. 115F then add to yeast mixture
Add salt and sugar
Add one cup of the flour. Let the mixture stand a while. It will start to foam up and smell good.
Start stirring in more flour until it's pasty enough to ball up instead of shaping itself to the bowl
Put flour over the area where you will knead it. Spoon the dough onto that flour. Put more flour on top of the dough ball and on your hands. (Oh, yeah, remove rings and watches first -- you're gonna get messy )

This is where the practice comes in. Flatten the dough ball, fold it in half, flatten it, fold it, meanwhile turning it over or around and sprinkling more flour so it doesn't stick to you or the table. At first it will pull apart easily like cookie dough. But as you do this, it starts getting rubbery and "elastic." You can pull it apart and it sucks itself back into a ball. That's why the guys making pizza in movies are spinning it, because rolling it out doesn't work very well. Meanwhile, as it's getting elastic, you're not needing to sprinkle as much flour, because it's not as sticky anymore. It's "smooth and elastic."

Now butter another bowl and put the dough in it. Turn it over so the buttery bottom is now on top. Wet a smooth cotton dishcloth (woven, not terrycloth), wring it out and put it over the top. Set it aside an hour or two in a warm place. When you come back, it will be twice the size. It will also be a different texture. If you pressed it when you put it in the bowl, it sprung back like the Pillsbury doughboy. Now it leaves a dent where you press it. It's ready for the second kneading. Fun part: Punch that sucker, hard. Make it deflate.

Put more flour on the board where you kneaded it and on your hands. You're going to repeat the kneading. The idea is to spread the yeast and bubbliness evenly through the dough. It will keep farting out little bubbles as you do this, but that's okay -- the yeast will make lots more

Let the dough rest with the dishcloth over it 15 minutes. Then come back and divide it into two balls about the same size. Knead each one. For each loaf, flatten out the dough into a square about 10 inches wide and as long as you can stretch it. Roll it up into a 10 inch wide roll, trying to make sure no air is caught in the roll. (You will see loafs in bakeries that have big holes in them, and you will now know why.) When it is rolled, pinch the edge all around to seal it up, then fold the ends underneath and seal them. You will have two dough loaves that are smooth on the top and have seams underneath.

Butter your baking pans, put each loaf smooth side down into a pan, then turn it buttery smooth side up. The ends of the loaf should touch the ends of the pan. The width will take care of itself.

Put the pans next to each other with the damp towel on top in a warm place. This time they will probably take 45 minutes to an hour to be not-quite-double in size and leave a dent for a moment when you press them. Meanwhile preheat the oven.

Bake them at 375F for metal pans or 350 for glass loaf pans. Bake about 40 minutes. They will be golden brown on top. You will be able to lift up the loaf pan with your hot mitt and tip the loaf out easily into your other hand (with a hot mitt!). Then remove your mitt and knock on the bottom of the loaf. It will sound hollow. You'll have no idea what that means until your first successful loaf, but then it will be pretty easy to tell.

Cool bread until no more than warm before cutting, or it will ball up into dough.

The Zojirushi's (fans call them "Zo" for short) are quite popular; I have had a Panasonic SD-YD250 for 13 years and love it. Except that the pan and paddle aren't meant for the dishwasher.

That said, it makes full sized loaves. If you are looking for smaller loaves, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Zoe Francois starts with a flexible master recipe, minimal kneading, and you can make whatever sized loaf you want.

I've only know GF people to use the Zo, I'm sure others use it though, however, growing up we had a regular bread maker and it was very easy to clean.

I'd really suggest just using a loaf pan and a mixer, much cheaper, still delicious, and it makes the whole house smell like delicious bread.