Best Bread Machine Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why is my breadmaker bread so dense and heavy? ›

Too much heat or humidity might lead to a too-quick rise and a crevice near the center of your bread. Conditions that are too cold might delay proofing or rising, resulting in a super-dense loaf. The bread machine works on a timer and hums along at its regular pace.

Making bread from a machine is marginally cheaper than buying it, as long as you eat bread frequently enough to offset the cost of the appliance. Specifically, I see this as an investment that's smart for households that go through bread quickly, like large families or homes with multiple roommates.

One disadvantage of using a bread maker as opposed to your hands is that the paddles are typically fixed, meaning they remain in the dough when baking, often leaving a hole in the middle of the loaf. Whilst this is not the biggest hinderance, it can be an annoyance to those who aim for gold standard loaves.

Of course you can! But 'all purpose' flour has a little less gluten, so your bread won't rise as high. If you're making bread the old-fashioned way, by hand, you can let it rise a little longer. But a bread machine does it exactly the same every time.

Some attribute the demise of the bread machine to the fact that cooks were just disappointed by their results. Lara Pizzorno, the author of Bread Machine Baking, chalked it up to food snobs who regarded the machine as “the electric equivalent of The Bridges of Madison County” in a 1996 article in The New York Times.

Potato Flakes or Potato Water

Starch helps the dough by trapping the gas from the yeast in the dough and makes the bubbles stronger. This helps the bread to rise and be lighter and fluffier. If you are boiling potatoes, you can use the unsalted water in place of the water in your bread recipe to help out the yeast.

So yes, you should use bread flour in the recipe. It has higher protein than all-purpose flour and will help your bread rise better and hold its shape.

If you decide you want to wake up to genuinely fresh Real Bread, made from locally stoneground wholemeal flour, water, yeast and a little salt, with no additives, added fat or sugar, a bread maker will do it for you - cheaply and with little effort.

It'll save time and give reliable consistent results every time - perfect if you're not much of a baker. But if you enjoy the process of making dough and creating rustic artisan loaves, you'll be better off baking them in your oven. A bread machine will feel too restrictive for you and won't be worth the counter space.

Yes, you absolutely can. That's what I use all the time. Bread machine yeast is the exact same yeast as Active Dry Yeast; it just comes in smaller granules so that you can add it to your dry ingredients instead of dissolving it in water.

Is it safe to leave the house with a bread machine on? ›

Always turn off the bread maker at the socket when not in use.

The top of my bread is not browning

If the bread is not baked for long enough, it will not brown properly. Also, make sure that you are using the correct type of flour. Bread flour will produce a darker crust than all-purpose flour. Finally, try adding a little bit of sugar to the dough.

Bread machine yeast, a form of instant yeast, is made through a different manufacturing process than active dry yeast. This process ensures that the yeast is 100% functional and can be mixed directly with the dry ingredients.

Just be sure to use a flour with a high protein content. King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, with its high gluten, is an excellent flour for bread machines. Numerous people have told us that their recipes worked in the bread machine using King Arthur, when they didn't work with other all-purpose flours.

Don't omit the gluten flour - that's what gives it its fluffiness! This can be done in either the bread machine or by hand. I do a combination of both - knead the dough and let rise in the bread machine, and then take it out, put it into a greased loaf pan and let rise the second time, then into the oven."

The usual reason why bread becomes too dense is due to using flour with low protein content. When your loaf is spongy and heavy, you might have also put too much flour into it or made the dough in a cooler or too warm setting. Bread baking may seem simple.

Yeast bread will come out heavy and dense if you don't give the yeast enough time to grow and multiply, giving off the CO2 gas that makes bread light and airy. When you make your dough, knead it well to develop the network of gluten fibres that will trap the CO2 gas the yeast produce.

The amount of water you add to your dough directly affects how the crumb in your baked loaf. A more open crumb results in bigger holes and a softer texture, whereas a closed crumb results in a more robust textured bread. Simply put, the more water in your dough, the more open the crumb will be.