Bread Maker

Bread Maker

Bread makers have been on the market for 35 years. But I haven't been concerned about the nutritional value of the bread that I consume until recently. So I'm way late - read on if you are in the same boat.

Having found no bread for sale that satisfies my new diet (minimal white bread, pasta, and rice), I decided to get a bread making machine. I chose a Hamilton Beach 2 pound model, largely because the cleanable parts are dishwasher safe. A bread slicer and knife are very useful. For choosing a bread slicer - the loaves are about 5 inches wide on my machine. That looks pretty standard from what I have seen. Watch out - the long serrated knife is dangerous when being cleaned.

First try - I printed a recipe for a two pound loaf, then decided to modify it on the fly to one pound. By the time I had (correctly) measured out half the flour and water, I forgot what I was doing and used the printed numbers for salt, yeast, olive oil. Sigh. It turned out okay, considering my missteps.

Second try - this time 1.5 pounds, a carefully reworked recipe, followed correctly. Except after starting the machine, I realized that the kneading paddle was still in the dishwasher. Fortunately it had been trying to knead for just a few seconds. I paused the machine, used a spatula to move the flour mix to the side, leaving mostly water over the kneading shaft. The paddle slid on easily. The carefully layered bread mix was a mess. But the bread turned out pretty good.

Third try - just minor adjustments now

    install kneading paddle
    1 1/4 cups warm water + 3 TABLEspoons for the chia seeds = 1 7/16 cup
    2 TABLEspoons olive oil (22 cal/slice)
    3 cups whole wheat flour (153 cal/slice)
    1 teaspoon vital wheat gluten (not sure that this is needed)
    3 TABLEspoons chia seeds (27 cal/slice)
    1 1/4 teaspoon salt
    1 1/4 teaspoon bread machine yeast

Having read about how nutritious chia seeds are, I've been looking for a good way to get them into my diet. This works well.

I cook the bread, let it cool, slice it, put it in a zipper freezer bag, and freeze it. It keeps for a long time and thaws quickly.

Whole wheat flour plus chia seeds. No added sugar. Just a little oil and salt. Tastes pretty good, especially as toast. The above 1.5 pound recipe yields 11 slices, 212 calories each. That's about twice as much as typical packaged bread. This bread is pretty dense, probably best to use just one slice and make an open faced sandwich.

The machine is easy to use and easy to clean. The kitchen is easy to clean - a little spilled flour from ingredient preparation and bread crumbs from slicing.

SUCCESS!

One of my favorite, hopefully healthy meals -

    toast a piece of the above bread
    add a slice of cheddar or Swiss cheese while the toast is hot
    fry a couple of eggs (I break the yoke and cook it solid) and put on top
    eat it with an avocado

Some kettle cooked potato chips taste good too. NOT healthy.

And fresh iced tea, no sweetener. No lemon for me.

Recipes

I have been using perplexity.ai (that's the web address) to find recipes (and my note about bread maker history). This is an AI search engine that finds and reports answers and gives links to where it found the information. (I am not suggesting that it is intelligent, but the industry and news media seem to think that it is.) It is only correct if the links are correct. And it will sometimes misinterpret the information on the links. But still it is useful.

"show me bread a machine recipe for 100% whole wheat bread, 1.5 pound loaf". This returns

    1 1/4 cups warm milk
    3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
    3 cups whole wheat flour
    1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
    1 1/4 teaspoons salt
    1 1/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast

and some additional instructions.

"show me a bread machine recipe for 100% whole wheat bread, no sweeteners, with chia seeds, 1.5 pound loaf". This returns

    1 1/4 cups warm water
    2 tablespoons vegetable oil
    3 cups whole wheat flour
    2 tablespoons chia seeds
    1 1/2 teaspoons salt
    2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

"show me a bread machine recipe for mostly whole wheat bread, no sweeteners, with chia seeds, 1.5 pound loaf". This returns

    1 1/4 cups water (110°F/45°C)
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
    3/4 cup bread flour
    2 tablespoons chia seeds
    1 1/2 teaspoons salt
    2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

Probably a nice texture improvement, but I'm happy with 100% whole wheat.