Application Guide
Table Of Contents
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgments
- America’s New Bread Box
- Orientation
- Batterie de Cuisine: Know Your Bread Machine
- Making Bread
- Daily Breads: White Breads and Egg Breads
- White Breads
- Egg Breads
- One-Pound Loaves
- Pasta Doughs from Your Bread Machine
- Earth’s Bounty: Whole Wheat, Whole-Grain, and Specialty Flour Breads
- Whole Wheat Breads
- Rye Breads
- Specialty Flour Breads
- Multigrain Breads
- Gluten-Free Breads
- Traditional Loaves: Country Breads and Sourdough Breads
- Country Breads
- Sourdough Breads
- All Kinds of Flavors: Breads Made with the Produce of the Garden, Orchard, and Creamery
- Herb, Nut, Seed, and Spice Breads
- Savory Vegetable and Fruit Breads
- Cheese Breads
- Mixes and Some Special Breads Created from Them
- Stuffing Breads
- Circle, Squares, and Crescents: Pizzas and Other Flatbreads
- Sweet Loaves: Chocolate, Fruit, and Other Sweet Breads
- Breakfast Breads
- Coffee Cakes and Sweet Rolls
- Chocolate Breads
- Holiday Breads
- Express Lane Bread: No-Yeast Quick Breads
- Jams, Preserves, and Chutneys in Your Bread Machine
- Appendix 1 Bits and Pieces: Crumbs, Croutons, Crostini, and Toasted Appetizers
- Appendix 2 To Eat with Your Bread: Spreads, Butters, Cheeses, and Vegetables
- Appendix 3 Resources
- General Index
- Recipe Index
Ideally, you will eat your bread the day it is made. Once you break the crust,
the inner crumb is exposed to air and begins to stale. You want to keep the
crust crisp and the inside soft for as long as possible. Starter and sourdough
breads keep the longest. Any added fat will help bread stay fresh a day
longer. Breads that include dairy products need to be refrigerated.
Eat a freshly made loaf within a few hours of baking. It will taste best within 24
hours.
Slice the bread as you eat it, rather than slicing the entire loaf as soon as it is cool.
Store bread in a bread box, bread drawer, brown paper bag, or perforated plastic
bag to allow air to circulate. Plastic is best for breads with lots of fat and a soft
crust. Storing bread in the refrigerator makes it stale quicker.
Leave the loaf unwrapped and place it cut side down on a bread board.
Cut the loaf in half. Eat one half and freeze the other half.
Slice the entire loaf, then store it in the freezer. Remove as many slices as you
need at one time and either thaw them in the microwave or toast them.
If the loaves are too heavy and dense before baking, the baked loaf
will be small and compact. If there is too much liquid or yeast in the dough, the bread
will collapse when the gluten strands break during baking. A beautiful baked loaf of
bread has a golden color to its crust and sounds hollow when it is tapped. Breads are
thoroughly baked at 190° to 200°F on an instant read thermometer. You can check the
temperature at the end of baking if you are not sure by sight whether the loaf is done.
A loaf has not completely finished baking until it is completely cool and all of the in-
ternal moisture has evaporated.
COOLING/COOL DOWN
Most bread machine models enter into a Cool Down period to remove the warm, moist
air at the end of baking; some even have a steam-injected hour-long Keep Warm pe-
riod. To avoid a gummy, soggy interior, remove a loaf as soon as the timer sounds that
the baking is done. In some models, the kneading blade sticks in the bottom of the loaf;
in others it stays in the pan due to its position. Sometimes a shake will dislodge the
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