Got a bread maker yesterday. I'm very impressed so far and can't wait to see if we keep using it regularly or use it a lot to begin with and then put it away in the special cupboard filled with all the other barely used kitchen contraptions.

Make pizza dough to the recipe I posted somewhere on here. You'll get into the habit of (at least thinking about) using it in no time.

Also I have a better bread recipe than the ones the machines seem to come with (mine anyway). And try the various flours the supermarkets are starting to sell, including rye and spelt. Doves Farm organic flours are great, though their fast-dried yeast (which comes in a cuboid orange pack) can be quite mental.

I'm actually partial to the Allinsons (I think) normal-dried yeast that you have to mix into hand-hot water with sugar and leave for a while to pre-activate; smells and tastes better, and is slightly more reliable.

And buy proper measuring spoons and cups, the nasty plastic things that come with machines are, well, nasty. I was bought some lovely metal ones which are lovely.

We use our breadmaker almost exclusively for making chorizo and pine nut muffins.

My parents use theirs loads. They have one with a timer, so they make a small size loaf overnight so they have fresh bread every morning for breakfast. Omnom.

Yeah I really fancy making some rye bread. I hope we'll get good use out of it. I'd occasionally make bread before, by hand, it's satisfying but incredibly labour intensive, just pouring everything into a machine and leaving it is much better.

Admittedly, mine's mostly used for pizza dough these days. When I live on my own, though, I'll maybe use it more. Partly because I also intend to buy a food blender for making delicious vegetably soups a lot. Steaming fresh bread with fresh soup, mmmmmm.

I mix my flours - a cup of spelt, 2 cups of seed'n'grain, half each of extra strong white and rye. That sort of thing, whatever I've got in and fancy really. Usually it's 1-2 cups white to 2-3 cups of others (total 4), helps the mix, the rise and reduces cost.

I bought mine the day after boxing day and it's been used on an almost daily basis since. In fact, there's a loaf about to finish any minute.

Did you not get an ice cream machine in the end, then?

It's one of these we got:

http://www.morphyrichards.co.uk/Product ... duct=48267

Just an impulse buy yesterday as they were £35 in Asda and had "Which Best somethingorother 2008" stamped on the box so I figured it's probably ok.

I'm not sure how this is going to help me with my weight loss plan

No, not yet. We still plan to, but there aren't many offers around at the moment and that is something that I don't think will get used anywhere near as often as the breadmaker. I (we) have taken your advice on board and Joans is keeping a keen eye on HUKD etc...

If they want you to put milk powder or more than 2tbsp of oil or sugar in a loaf, come back to me.

Also, the Fastbake never works on mine, I always do 'proper' loaves. Can never remember if it's Morphy Richards or Russell Hobbs though.

They want me to put milk powder in. The recipes that come with it are in here:

http://www.morphyrichards.co.uk/Downloa ... B48267.pdf

We've had ours for about five years and it gets used at least twice a week without fail, for bread of varying styles - current stalwart is a wholemeal/white mix as I find 100% wholemeal a bit of a chore to eat. I've got tons of recipes with our machine and I've tried quite a few - the sun dried tomato focaccia it makes is awesome, ferinstance.

Almost the same as ours. I don't think much of the fastbake bread, but the sun dried tomato one was beautiful. When this sandwich loaf has finished we're going to try the cheese and onion one.

Aye, there definitely won't be as much use for one as a bread-maker. After all, you can only really make ice cream and sorbet, as opposed to the myriad baked goods you can now make.

Right, must be the same as mine then. They're very USian-style breads.

For a 2lb loaf using fast action yeast on the normal white loaf setting (unless using a high wholemeal proportion):
4 cups flour
360ml "hand-hot" water
2tbsp vegetable oil (olive oil is nice in 'gourmet'-style loaves, but not a white one)
2tbsp sugar (I just use granulated/caster)
2tsp salt
2tsp yeast

Put the water in the bucket, add the oil. Add the flour, then salt and sugar. Make a well in the top of the flour, put in the yeast. Hit start.

Keep an eye on it during the initial intermittent mix, to see if you need more flour (if it stays really sloppy/wet, shake in a bit more flour and wait a few secs, if it doesn't mix properly, consider a few ml more water). I keep a desert spoon handy for scraping oily bits off the sides. Once it hits the constant mix part, it's too late to rescue a very imbalanced mix, but 4cup:360ml will never be that far out.

The only problem I have with that recipe and method is that it can remain too dense at the base, and over-rise at the top. I'm pretty sure that's down to the water not being warm enough, especially because I keep the yeast in the fridge.

If I'm using less white, but not enough wholemeal to go for the wholemeal bake, I sometimes add a bit more yeast, less than 1/2tsp extra.
It's a bit of a learning experience and frustrating, but satisfying once you start to get your eye in. Some of these problems are probably down to mine being quite old, they've probably improved the design since.

Well Sam and Joans are the real icecream eaters in this house, and it's not really the time of year (not that you'd know it with the amount they are eating with the chocolate bread...)

Any minute now. Smells lovely.

Cheers for that I'll certainly give it a go.

I've got some of the French Bread from the recipes that came with it on the go now. The dough has all risen and so I guess it'll start baking soon. It's all incredibly exciting.

You don't bake french bread in the machine surely, that should be a dough-only, transfer to a tray, shape and bake in the oven one?

We have a french bread setting. It's nice, but I found the crust to be quite hard, will adjust the setting next time.

Heh. It's not brilliant weather for ice cream, but I've been making a lot of hot chocolate with it lately (seriously: om nom nom), but obviously making your own ice cream just to melt again would be a bit pointless.

How odd. I probably do as well I suppose, I've just never used anything but the white, wholemeal and dough settings. And fastbake, until I decided I hate it and it doesn't work.

Some of the breads people have made here sound tasty. Can I suggest someone makes smartie bread, or a tasty savoury bacon and cabbage bread. Maybe a beef and horseradish bread, for Sunday lunch.

Oh, my recipe is also good for focaccia - use super strong white flour (or proper french/italian stuff) with olive oil. Yes, I said that doesn't work, but it does here. Dough only, shape into a rough square on a tray, leave it to rise for 15 minutes, prod it all over with your thumb, stick bits of rosemary into those indentations, scatter coarse sea salt on top, in an 180C oven for 20 minutes (ish).

Half-wholemeal sundried tomato bread FTW.

I made pizza dough in it once but it took about 4 hours ffs! Since I can have an entire pizza made and in the oven in 20 minutes, including "self-raising flour and water" base, I'm not likely to use that one again.

The dough setting on mine is 1:30, and a proper yeasty base is much nicer than a self-raising/baking powder one. Especially stretched (not rolled) and on a pre-heated to oven-max stone. They really do make a big difference.

Not as good as a 400C wood-fired pizza oven in the garden though, which one day I'll have. One day...

Maybe I'll make pizza for anyone staying at my house for the meet that's still there around Sunday lunchtime.

Temptress...

Bring some to Madchester PLZ

I have and I have, damn you. Also: garlic pizza bread. Also: calzone. Om nom nom.

The best thing I've done with the breadmaker so far is a tomato, parmesan and red onion focaccia to go with a spaghetti carbonara. Om to the motherfucking nom.

My only issue with the bog-standard white loaves is that the top crust goes soft when it's cooling. I understand that this is because of steam rising inside the bread, but anything I've tried to sort the problem out (dark crust, a bit less water in the mix) has just made the crust everywhere else much too thick.

Do you use a cooling rack and drape a light tea-towel over the loaf for at least an hour? Mine usually crust up* again if I do that, though I leave them like that for hours so they're properly cool for putting in a bag and then into the breadbin.

Or just lie the loaf on its side/turn it every half hour while it cools?

Pro-tip from someone at work: if you forget to take the loaf out and go past the built-in 'stay warm' period, so the bread gets soggy, put it in a warm oven for a while and it'll dry out fine.

* Not go stale!

Fuck. Yeah.

Why is bread so calorific? Why!? The one single proof that there is no God.

Uh, no. That would be the calorie content of bacon.

Thanks man, I'll give those ideas a go.

A combination of these two methods has resulted in a crust that's not perfect but is definitely a vast improvement. Thanks a lot, matey.

SPELLCASTING: R-E-S-U-R-R-E-C-T-I-O-N.

I have recently obtained an old breadmaker and while the bread is nice, I am struggling to get whole meal bread to rise. It is very tasty, and not dense at all, but the middle is not risen. The outsides are lovely and crisp, and they seem to rise, but the middle is lower than the edges. Any hints for wholemeal bread?

I’m no bread expert, but I’m sure wholemeal bread needs extra water compared to white bread flour, and extra time for the water to be absorbed by the flour. I think it’s also usually suggested that you start with a 50/50 blend of white/wholemeal and increase the percentage of wholemeal by 5 or 10% with each success, to either find a sweet spot or adjust your rise times and water qty gradually.

I line Marriages flours for my breads. I find quality flour really makes a great difference.

I have a nice organic flour (https://wessexmill.co.uk/shop/), and I don't think I can change the brewing time, but I'll try adding a bit more water. Thanks.

As I say, it tastes great! And the crust is amazing! So I'm not exactly upset here. )

Try adding in some Canadian white bread flour, and making a blended loaf, then working your way up to the full 100% maybe?

Glad you have an amazing tasting loaf, though. Your flour sounds like it makes a beautiful bread.

Wholemeal needs extra water and also doesn't have the same gluten content/ability to build strength. So it might (also) be an under proofing issue.

What measurements did you use?

(Mimi's right though, add white, there's no shame, most recipes are proportional replacements of white flour rather than 100% not-white)

This is the recipe I used.

I'll have a play around with different things and see what works

That's 73% hydration which is quite high (ignoring the water in the butter) - maybe try reducing it to 70% or even 65% and see what happens, rather than adding more water.

It's usually easier if you do all the measurements by weight, rather than teaspoons. Bakers maths is real!

Oh, and 45C is a bit close to yeast-killing heat - is that to try and compensate for sitting around for a while before kicking it off?

I bet that's a really tasty loaf.

I got a book out of the library and changed recipes

It looks more like it. Haven't tasted it yet, mind you.

Looks great. Rate your sandwich when you’re able.

Very soft nice bread. A bit salty.

Oh, fabulous. So glad you’ve found a good recipe to work with.

Did you tappy tap the bottom like Paul Hollywood?