Bread machine recipes?

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Muttley Jun 2021 8:40am, 6 Jun 2021 1,137 posts	0 Muttley So I bought the cheapie Cookworks breadmaker from Argos. My understanding is that these machines are all much of a muchness with the possible exception of the (very expensive) Panasonic ones. The recipe book is crap. Little variety, and the plain loaves contain way too much salt. My own experiments and attempts to adapt recipes for other machines have resulted in house bricks. Anyone else got one of these things? Any idiot-proof recipes to share? Preferably with wholemeal flour and small loaf, about 500g/1lb baked.
BanjoBax Jun 2021 12:50pm, 6 Jun 2021 5,167 posts	0 BanjoBax When you try and make wholemeal - are you using any white at all, the wholemeal recipe for the tower has 150g white plus 300g wholemeal flour in the 750g recipe. I know from when I was hand baking sourdough it's much easier with some white flour, especially a strong white (Canadian flour often rated the best as high gluten content) and there tends to be a fair bit of salt in bread. Are you keeping the salt away from the yeast when you load the ingredients? The tower says water in first add salt then dry ingredients with yeast on the top and warns about keeping salt and yeast apart. I've just baked my first loaf with a Tower bread maker(gift) pretty good loaf though sunk back a tiny bit, the recipe book is sparse to say the least.
ChrisHB Jun 2021 1:00pm, 6 Jun 2021 21,003 posts	0 ChrisHB If you use one of the recipes that came with your machine, does it come out well? If not then the machine is useless and needs to go back.
larkim Jun 2021 1:05pm, 6 Jun 2021 14,675 posts	0 larkim My wife's standard wholemeal bread maker recipe is 2x cups wholemeal, 1x cup strong white (a cup should be about 150g apparently), 270ml water, 2.5tbsp skimmed milk powder, 2.5tbsp sunflower oil, 2tbsp sugar, 1.25tsp salt and 1.25tsp yeast. She tells me she uses the white loaf programme and it does come out nicely for a 700g or so loaf.
larkim Jun 2021 1:08pm, 6 Jun 2021 14,676 posts	0 larkim We used to have a Panasonic but it does. Now got a Moulinex and I can't really tell the difference. They all heat, stir, wait and bake and whilst the temps might be more precise if a unit has better components I doubt there is really much difference in the end. I also doubt very much that there is any great thought to the recipes and a little tweaking here and there can make a tasty difference, as well as good quality ingredients of course.
faithfulred Jun 2021 1:48pm, 6 Jun 2021 703 posts	0 faithfulred You don't need a bread maker to make bread. Doing it by hand is really easy and it comes out so much better. I learnt to bake with this book, which is brilliant: amazon.co.uk
Ocelot Spleens Jun 2021 2:00pm, 6 Jun 2021 31,063 posts	0 Ocelot Spleens well said
MH Jun 2021 2:07pm, 6 Jun 2021 848 posts	0 MH My 100% wholemeal bread recipe is 1tsp yeast, 425g wholemeal flour (canadian extra strong or Bacheldre wholemeal), 1 tsp sugar, 1.5 tsp salt, 2tbsp oil, 300ml water for a medium loaf - yeast in first, then flour then the rest. I make it every other day - however it is a Panasonic machine. I did try a few other breadmakers before getting this one (although it was ages ago) and couldn't make decent 100% wholemeal no matter how I tried. Flour does make a difference as well, when all the flour stocks ran out last year I bought a sack of wholemeal direct from a miller and really struggled to make decent bread with it in the machine and did it by hand.
Dvorak Jun 2021 2:07pm, 6 Jun 2021 22,578 posts	0 Dvorak You don't need a breadmaker ... but you can get pretty decent bread from a breadmaker with minimal input, and for a lot of people (me, for example), that's much preferable to putting the work in, and it is work, to make proper bread. We have a LG breadmaker, maybe twenty years old, not all that much used. My father bought it, but I doubt if he made four loaves in it. I make just the basic recipes, white or brown, and they turn out fine. Less salt than it says. One peculiarity is it produces a tall square loaf, not a long one. Awkward to cut. So I half it, to then slice it. If you are really stuck, try one of the Wright's bread or cake mixes - foolproof (I think ) tesco.com
BanjoBax Jun 2021 2:11pm, 6 Jun 2021 5,168 posts	0 BanjoBax When I was hand baking - on the bread forums loads of real bread-ies used breadmakers for when they didn't have time to bake by hand Had that book faithfulred linked - wasn't my cup of tea, more into Dan Lepard, though Bertinet's retarding of dough a very useful trick to apply to any recipe for better flavour.