Do I reckon that bread machine mixes are useful? Yes, some of them are, but the snag with all bread machine mixes is that they place limitations on your choice and do not promote your creative talents. That may sound odd, but reckon about it for a even as. If you depend on bread machine mixes you can only make the bread for which you can buy a bread machine mix and you can only tip the bread machine mix into the bowl and switch on the bread making machine. You are certainly not likely to alter the bread machine mix for dread that it won’t work.
What is the alternative? Well, the ancient-fashioned cookbook, of course! Not any ancient cookbook, but a specialized bread making machine recipe book. Bread making is a very simple, but rather tedious process. The ingredients are everyday, household bits and pieces: water, flour, yeast, salt, sugar and oil. You already have those bits and pieces in your cupboard with the doable exception of the yeast, which can be bought everywhere at low cost.
And I’m sure you already know what happens when you cook following a recipe, don’t you? You have already read the recipe through and you know you have everything in the cupboard, but when the recipe requires, let’s say, lemon peel, you open the cupboard door and see that you don’t have any lemons – but you do have orangess! Oh, well you reckon, oranges’ll do. You make do. You try things out. And that means that you are developing your talent and creativity. Bread making mixes will not do that for you.
A excellent bread making machine cookbook will have well over 100 recipes coming from a number of different countries and you will become really enthusiastic about trying out the various ones. Have you ever eaten Welsh bread – Bara Brith? Or Amish bread? Cajun bread or onion bread? Cranberry bread is lovely too, but one of my all time favourites is Brazil Nut Bread – absolutely delightful.
The fact is that you may not find recipes for all these breads in one recipe book, but if you have a safe starting top, like a bread recipe cookbook, you can start by using previously tried and tested gourmet bread recipes and gradually develop your own – oftentimes because you have to.
I once made a really fantastic loaf of bread by adding some of the leftover vegetables from my Sunday dinner. It was very tasty, though I could never quite make the same loaf again, try as I did many times, because I had not written down the weights of the added vegetables. I could only remember that I had added green beans, potatoes and sweet corn in it!
Bread machine mixes will never ever provide that, will they? Furthermore, bread machine mixes are honestly expensive compared to the cost of 10 pounds of flour. I usually vary the ingredients too: honey instead of sugar, milk instead of water, olive oil or butter instead of just corn oil. Rock salt instead of sea salt or visa versa. I’m sure you see what I mean.
Bread machine mixes are not only limited but limiting too. A bread making machine is a fantastic way to use up leftovers. I have often place meat and fruit in my gourmet bread. My principle is: if it’ll go in a sandwich it’ll go in the bread – like an Indian stuffed paratha or stuffed naan bread.
Don’t waste your money buying bread machine mixes – instead be creative with a bread machine recipes cookbook.
If you use bread machine mixes go on over to http://bread-machine-mixes.the-real-way.com to see what tasty loaves you have been missing.
