The simplest great French Bread recipe

[#juan]

We got a breadmaker a few months ago. What a treat it is. I don't think people generally know how simple they are to use. The following is not so much a recipe as directions. Here is a list of ingredients:

1. 1 1/4 cups water

2. 1 1/4 tespoons salt

3. 1 tablespoon sugar

4. 3 2/3 cups white flour

5. 1 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Measure the ingredients in the order they are listed into breadmaker baking pan. Insert pan into breadmaker. Push buttons. In exactly three hours and forty five minutes you have a large loaf of very good French bread. All the timing and kneading and baking is done by the breadmaker. As I said in the other thread, "The best $125 I've ever spent" .

 

[Jay]

I got one as a wedding gift....we love it!


We make our own Panzerottis with it...pizza etc.

 

[Haggis McBagpipe]

We've been using a breadmaker for years, and love it. Hmm, come to think of it, that's a good idea for something to do this instant! Well, okay, maybe in the next instant, or the one after that. Okay, OKAY, maybe not in any of today's instances, but in a very-near-future instance. My god. I could have made that loaf of bread in the time it took me to write this!

 

[ottawa224]

I'm going to try it with my breadmaker. I'm trying to make good garlic bread with my breadmaker, do you have a recipe?

 

[L Gilbert]

Our's gets a fair bit of use except, we just use it mainly to mix the dough then we bake it n the oven.

 

[snowles]

I haven't used one in years; I always found the bread to be heavier than a box of feathers coated in lead; it's hard to describe unless you hold one from a breadmaker in one hand and one in an oven in your other hand, but the weight difference, despite using the same amount of ingredients, is stunning. And I was never a fan of the bulletproof crust they were known for. Have they changed in recent years?

For my money, nothing beats a good stove and a well-used bread pan.

Like LG, my folks use it to mix the dough, being older and not up to the patience of kneading, rising and pounding dough all afternoon. There's only two things my dad makes well: peanut butter cookies, and with the help of the breadmaker and despite its complexities, cinnamon buns.

 

[dmiranda91]

I am planning to buy a bread maker this coming month. So it makes easy to bake a bread like a garlic bread.

 

[TenPenny]

We used our first one so much, we wore it out...so we bought another.

Here's an interesting thing: one of the women at work has one the same (Black and Decker something)...she said she tried to use it about 5 times, and gave up. I couldn't understand it, so one day, I said, bring it in to work, with the ingredients, and we'll try it...right off the bat, I noticed that the recipes in her instruction manual were different (and no, it's not the US/Canadian flour thing - the proportions of each were different to mine). I went home to get my instruction book, and she followed the instructions in mine, and voila: good bread.

For some reason, Black&Decker changed the proportions in the recipes, and the new ones wouldn't work properly. Can't remember what they messed up, salt/sugar/yeast proportions I think, but it was quite apparent. Her sister had the same machine with the same problem.

I found that really weird.

 

[#juan]

For some reason, Black&Decker changed the proportions in the recipes, and the new ones wouldn't work properly. Can't remember what they messed up, salt/sugar/yeast proportions I think, but it was quite apparent. Her sister had the same machine with the same problem.
I found that really weird.

That is interesting.
We've had our Black&Decker breadmaker for about five years now and it has gotten a lot of use. We used the bake feature a few times initially but very early on we decided that it was much better to use our own bread pans to bake the bread in the oven.
I don't know how long breadmakers last, but I guess we'll find out when we buy a new one if the recipes still work the same or not.
Btw, we've gone almost completely away from the recipes in the breadmaker manual in favor of a site we found on line.

Bread Machine - All Recipes

 

[TenPenny]

Do you have any issues with the recipes, where many of the are US based, and the flour would be different?

 

[#juan]

Do you have any issues with the recipes, where many of the are US based, and the flour would be different?

As near as I can tell, Canadian all purpose flour is made from a harder wheat than American all purpose flour. Americans use their bread flour for bread and their bread flour is similar to our all purpose flour. It seems that there is only a problem if you use American all purpose flour in your breadmaker if you are using a Canadian recipe.....Too much gluten, or too little gluten or something. ;-) We've never had a problem as long as we used Canadian all purpose flour. When we still had our boat we stopped in Seattle and my wife picked up a bag of American all purpose flour not knowing there was a difference. She claimed that flour didn't work for anything and eventually threw it out. Somebody used to using that flour probably wouldn't have had a problem.

 

[AnnaG]

I went back to making bread by hand. I use the same amount of flour for 5 loaves as the breadmaker uses for 1-2 lb loaf. Needless to say, my bread is lighter and fluffier than the machine's. The machine is great for mixing cookie dough and stuff though. I use all-purpose flour, BTW, and found that R. H. works best for me.

 

[#juan]

I went back to making bread by hand. I use the same amount of flour for 5 loaves as the breadmaker uses for 1-2 lb loaf. Needless to say, my bread is lighter and fluffier than the machine's. The machine is great for mixing cookie dough and stuff though.

Anna
It's all in the kneading. If you run your dough through another kneading cycle you will get the results you are looking for. The whole idea is to save work. Do you think the bakeries hand knead their bread? I don't think so...;-)

 

[TenPenny]

As near as I can tell, Canadian all purpose flour is made from a harder wheat than American all purpose flour. Americans use their bread flour for bread and their bread flour is similar to our all purpose flour. It seems that there is only a problem if you use American all purpose flour in your breadmaker if you are using a Canadian recipe.....Too much gluten, or too little gluten or something. ;-) We've never had a problem as long as we used Canadian all purpose flour. When we still had our boat we stopped in Seattle and my wife picked up a bag of American all purpose flour not knowing there was a difference. She claimed that flour didn't work for anything and eventually threw it out. Somebody used to using that flour probably wouldn't have had a problem.

Yeah, it's the gluten content that's different...as long as the us recipes are made for what they call bread flour, they'll be fine.

We make a lot of grain breads, using red river cereal, for esample, but I love a nice oatmeal brown bread, made with molasses...now I'm hungry again.

 

[AnnaG]

Anna
It's all in the kneading. If you run your dough through another kneading cycle you will get the results you are looking for. The whole idea is to save work. Do you think the bakeries hand knead their bread? I don't think so...;-)

I'll try running it through 2 cycles then. I think one cycle kneads it twice. I only knead it twice by hand, too, though.

 

[TenPenny]

When I knead you
I hold out my hands
And I touch you...

 

[#juan]

When I knead you
I hold out my hands
And I touch you...

Leo Sayer I presume....:lol: