I'll butter your bread, baby.

September 9, 2008 12:36 PM

What are your favorite bread machine recipes?

I've recently inherited a bread machine, but not the recipe book it came with. I'm looking for all kinds of recipes, either cooked in the bread machine or just mixed in the bread machine and cooked in the oven. Sandwich rolls, dinner bread, pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, flatbreads, hearty breads, sweet breads, restaurant knock-offs... pretty much everything! If you love it, I want to hear it!

posted by kidsleepy to food & drink (6 comments total)

The best pizza dough ever. The very hot oven and pizza stone are key, though.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:01 PM on September 9, 2008

This isn't a recipe, but cooking it in the oven always made a huge difference. And cooking it in a dutch oven, placed inside an oven (lightly flour dough, heat oven in advance, and add a teaspoon of water or use wetter dough) will create a really nice artisan crust.
posted by mecran01 at 1:02 PM on September 9, 2008

I just use any ole bread recipe out of my cookbooks. Make sure you do the whole yeast and water thing separately, letting the yeast get all foamy. Throw all the other ingredients in the bread machine. Put the yeast/water in last. Turn the bread machine on the dough setting. When it's done, bake it in the oven.
posted by All.star at 2:36 PM on September 9, 2008

Although it's not a recipe, here's my best and awesome-est tip. The key to light, tall loaves bread, even (or especially!) using whole grains and seeds, which I love, is added gluten. I add it even when I'm using bread flour. Add 1-4 tablespoons of gluten, less for white bread, more as you increase the "density" of the flour/grains, etc in the recipe. Bob's Red Mill has an excellent gluten found in most grocery stores as well as online. Also (cheaper and just as good, and can be purchased in smaller quantities) in bulk at grocers who carry bulk flours, grains, etc. Once you've had bread machine bread with added gluten, you'll never go back, baby!
posted by mumstheword at 3:29 PM on September 9, 2008

I got Ms. Eclectist's bread machine from a Goodwill, and it didn't have a manual, either - so we downloaded one, and found very little difference between my bread machine instructions and hers.

After a simply amazing winter of crockpot stews and soups with bread machine loaves, some friends of ours bought one from a different Goodwill, downloaded a different manual and, after a few tweaks, voila, instant good-food goodness.

Googling "pdf bread machine instructions manual" brings up one on the first page that essentially mimics the others that I've seen. With the caveat that no two models are exactly alike, all bread machines share certain conventions and similarities, and any one manual should give you enough of a start to make a halfway edible loaf your first try. But bread machines are capable of sooo much more - the jams and jellies you can make are reason enough for me.
posted by eclectist at 8:35 PM on September 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

We've started making our own bread, and we're finding wholemeal flower, mixed herbs and chopped sundried tomatoes are pretty sweet.

As a piggy-back question - can anyone recommend a good breadmaker?
posted by Happy Dave at 8:52 AM on September 10, 2008