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Making bread can be difficult, especially in the beginning. It is also time consuming. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Now you can make perfect bread too, at the push of a button. Your kids’ brown bag lunch is going to be a lot healthier, too. How about a croissant to go with that first cup of coffee in the morning? You got it! All you need to do is provide the necessary ingredients, pour them in a bread maker and VOILA! Perfect loaf with a golden crust and a fluffy texture is ready for you and your family to enjoy.
The whole beauty of a bread machine is that it transforms the seemingly difficult job of manual bread making into an automated process that gives you the same If not better results. Let’s face it, all the kneading, waiting for the dough to rise(proofing), steaming to make that crust perfect and worrying if it’s under cooked makes a lot of people nervous and the whole idea a bit intimidating. You want to leave a good impression on your friends and family and the last thing you want to do is embarrass yourself with a flop.
Bread machines these days can be programmed to do the work even before you wake up. Using a bread machine couldn’t be easier. You just need to put the necessary ingredients into the bread pan, push a couple of buttons and let it do all the kneading, proofing and baking for you.
Bread machines come in a variety of shapes, sizes and features. Even though some are better than the others, basically, they consist of the same parts. There’s an insulated body unit which contains a motor, heater, brad pan and a kneading blade. Bear in mind the quantity of bread that you’ll be producing when buying a bread machine. You may be tempted to buy a smaller bread maker but a good one capable of producing three different sizes of loaves is probably the best long term solution. Don’t be tempted to purchase a bread machine solely because they produce the breads faster. Let me explain.
The flavor and quality of bread depends on a lot of things. One of the major ones is yeast. The slower the yeast grows the better the flavor. Longer bread machine cycles allow yeast to grow slower and ultimately provide better quality breads. The longer cycle shouldn’t be a problem because it is fully automated ad doesn’t require your attention.
Some of the bread machines on the market have a window installed in the lid which makes it possible for you to view the bread in various stages of the program. While there are obvious advantages to this feature, there is one downside; the bread makers that have larger lid windows tend to produce bread with a pale top crust compared to those without the lid window.
With the average cost of just under a hundred dollars, bread makers are more affordable today than they have ever been. They make it possible for even the clumsiest of cooks out there to make great tasting bread. Why would you want to rely on low quality, nutrient depleted, processed bread when you can have a great tasting, nutritious bread at the push of a button? A loaf you will be proud to share with your friends and family; one with your own personal stamp of approval.