Kitchen Improv

Adventures in Breadmaking

In May I vowed to quit buying commercial bread. Not only are the prices of my favorite brand skyrocketing ($4.59 to $5.29 per loaf), the company has recently started adding soy to their ingredients list. I did some research and reviewed my mom’s stack of artisan bread recipes and decided that my wallet and my stomach would be better off if I started making my own loaves.

Because handmade bread takes so much time from start-to-finish and requires a watchful eye to catch the end of a proofing cycle, I decided I would buy a bread machine. Well, why not? Even if with one, I can still make hand-kneaded loaves the old-fashioned way on occasion, right?

After comparing the budget-variety machines with the Cadillac models, I decided on the Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme. I love the large loaf size, three custom recipe settings, and variety of pre-defined cycles that allow for more than just a simple brick-shaped loaf of chewy-crusted bread that seem to be the norm with so many other machines.

My first few loaves were nothing short of abysmal. Not accounting for the recipe tweaks needed for high-elevation baking, nor the incompatibility of my mother’s recipes with the machine method, I turned out some bread that my mother would have been ashamed of.

With patience, time, and the forgiving boys in my family who ate every slice, my attempts to create the perfect loaf have resulted in a handful of recipes that are repeat-worthy and have become staples in my home. Aside from the cost of the machine, which I estimate I’ll recapture in about eight months, I now spend a little over $2 per loaf of bread and don’t have to worry about soy or other undesired ingredients finding their way into my food.

Here are some recipes you may enjoy:
Honey Whole Wheat Bread
Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Whole-Grain Wheat Bread
Simple White Loaf