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I bought a bread maker the other day, I am just waiting for it to arrive. Does anyone have any tips, resources, or good recipes. Thanks

I've been making this recipe regularly & my loaves turn out perfect everytime, and oh is it ever delicious.

Multi-grain bread - 2 lb loaf
*Add the ingredients below strictly in the order listed
*Before adding yeast, make a little hole in the flour with your finger, & put the yeast in it. This is because you never want the yeast to come in contact with the salt or the salt will kill the yeast.
*When measuring the flour, scoop flour into the measuring cup as you will get a more accurate meaure, never scoop measure directly into the flour.
* I also use room temperature water, don't know why, just do.

1 cup + 2 tbsp Water
1 1/2 tbsp Earth Balance Margarine (I cut it into a few pieces)
1 1/2 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Agave nectar
1 1/2 cups All purpose Best For Bread Flour
1 1/2 cups Whole Grain, Stone Ground Spelt Flour ( you could use Stone Ground Whole Wheat if you like)
3/4 cup 7-12 Grain Cereal (Lately I've been using Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain cereal)
1 1/2 tsp Quick Rise Yeast

I set my breadmaker to whole wheat, medium crust setting.

*During the second kneeding of the dough, your machine will probably beep...at this point, you are free to improvise & add some enhancements to your loaf. sometimes I'll add a mixture of raisins, hemp seeds or sunflour seeds. You may have to pull the dough out to help mix these ingredients into the dough.

If you try it, I hope it works out for you. Have fun!

hhmmmmm I wonder if I could leave the earth balance out, do you think?

As far as the margerine is concerned...

I just made a pre packaged mix from Arrowhead Mills, a whole wheat flour bread for bread machines, or for hand mixing (I made it by hand.)

I substitued applesauce for the oil (and this substitution was suggested in the directions for fat free bread.)

I don't think you can tell the difference...

fiddler3

My parents bought me a bread machine 12 years ago for my birthday. It's a Hitachi Home Bakery II--I am in awe of this thing. It has never, ever failed or made a bad loaf of bread. I have used it consistently since I got it to make bread twice a week, and I know you'll love yours no matter what brand it is.

The best thing about bread machines is, almost all of them have a dough setting. You have the option of making yeast dough for rolls, pitas, baguettes, whatever. It will even rest the dough automatically for you, so it only needs one rise with no punch-down when it's done.

One tip: if you have no problem with gluten, replace some of your whole wheat flour with a little vital wheat gluten when making pizza dough. [/i]

I refuse to use anything that I can't grind myself. I usually use 2 cups ground kamut. The third cup is a mixture of hard winter wheat and kamut. The tricky part is getting the right amount of water and dough, and the rising time accurate. It is helpful to lift the cover during kneading and feel the dough for stickiness. Add flour or water as your new found experience dictates. I start the cycle on the whole wheat cycle and during the last rise cycle I switch it to the quickcycle. This cycle has a shorter rising time. Otherwise my dough rises too high. It needs the shorter cycle so it won't collapse. It is working. THis whole grain bread turns out quite nice.

3 cups grain as descibed above
1 1/3 plus 1T water
1 t ealt
3 t yeast
3T vital wheat gluten

Put yeast on top

hanawaiman, 3 teaspoons of yeast? That sounds like a lot! My whole wheat uses 1.5--if I use packaged yeast at all. My bread machine must be small!

Have you ever experimented with biga? You make bread from the wild yeast found on red wine grapes. It's easy for me because I have a bunch of cabernet vines...the cool thing about it is, the yeast found on my particular vines causes bread never to mold. When it gets old, it just dries out.

If you live in an area with a winery, you should visit it and ask to take a bit of grapes home. You just crush a few into a bit of flour and water, and treat it the same way you'd treat sourdough culture. Bread made this way contains flour, water, and a bit of the starter. That's all. And it tastes wonderful! If you grind your own flour, it sounds like something you'd enjoy doing.