Best Bread Machine Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the best flour to use in a bread machine? ›

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.

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.

Some recipes will advise adding sugar, which, in addition to making the bread a little sweet, helps the yeast to rise better. Others also suggest adding a little oil, such as olive or vegetable oil. This helps the dough form, preventing it from sticking to the sides of the pan, and makes the bread more tender.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

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.

Yes! All-purpose flour has a 9% to 12% gluten content, while bread flour's gluten content falls in the 10% to 13% range. Even if your all-purpose flour lacks gluten, you can still use it in the bread machine. Again, the worst that will happen is that your bread will not rise as much as it would with bread flour.

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.

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.

"Bread machine flour" and "bread flour" are interchangeable terms. 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.

You add the ingredients, and the bread machine makes and bakes the bread in one handy appliance. Liquid ingredients are added first, then oils or fats, dry ingredients, and finally yeast (if your recipe calls for it). The machine will mix, knead, rise, and bake the dough to a beautifully soft bread with a crisp crust.

Why is bread flour recommended for bread machine? ›

he reason bread flour is different is the higher protein content, which translates to more gluten if you work the dough more than necessary. This is a good thing for making bread, because gluten is what gives the bread rise and structure.

If your bread has a sour, yeasty flavour and smells of alcohol then you have either used too much yeast.or you may have use stale yeast or creamed fresh yeast with sugar.

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.

Egg has protein, fat, water and while the fat and water soften the crumb, the protein helps with strengthening the gluten and capturing more CO2. Eggs are also helping with leavening the dough which adds to the rise. Doughs that have more egg usually rise more, so go ahead and play around a bit!

Fortunately, one of the most glaring baking problems has an easy solution: ensuring your bread stays moist. The key is twofold: use quality ingredients and let the dough stand overnight. If you're using storebought flour, opt for “bread flour,” which will hold better in heat and help create a more tender crumb.

While bread flour is more than adequate for everyday breads, some professional bakers use high-gluten flour with a 14% protein content to provide extra strength to dense, chewy doughs like bagels and pizza dough. High-gluten bread flour gives milk bread it's taut structure and compact (but tender) crumb.

Whole-Wheat Flour

Whole-wheat flour is much heartier than all-purpose flour and produces denser baked goods with a more robust flavor. Milled from wheat berries with the nutritious bran and germ still intact, whole-wheat flour is rich in fiber and essential micronutrients like iron, magnesium and vitamin B6.

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.