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Nested measuring cups for dry ingredients, a see-through measuring cup for liquids, and accurate spoons can prevent otherwise unexplained bricks and blahs.

A half-tablespoon (1 ½ teaspoons) spoon is our favorite luxury; keep it in the salt. And a scoop or container sized to slide the flour into the machine’s bucket without spills.

Last but not least, please get a chef’s thermometer—so handy for seeing if temperatures are right. And, when in doubt about whether a loaf is done through, you can check to see if it has reached 200°F in the middle.

Better Bread

Bread machines do a good job of kneading. They entirely solve the problem of where to let the dough rise so that it’s out of drafts. They don’t heat up the kitchen. They bake with almost no electricity—and, of course, you don’t have to be there to mix, knead, deflate, shape, proof, preheat, or bake! Still, as we’ve said, commercial bread machines are engineered for white flour, even those with whole wheat cycles. For elegant whole wheat loaves, some finer points:

TEMPERATURE

Temperature matters so much that if your machine doesn’t preheat, we suggest that you preheat it yourself, except for timed loaves. At the beginning, before you gather your ingredients, fill the bucket with very warm water. Pour that water out when you are ready to put the ingredients in.

FLOUR

Please read about flour. Machine baking requires high-protein flour. If you think your flour needs help, put a tablespoon of gluten flour (or “vital wheat gluten”) in the bottom of the cup when you measure flour.

Contrary to what some manuals say, freshly home-milled flour works wonderfully in machines. Since it is fluffy, tap down the cups when you measure, or weigh instead.

YEAST

Good new yeast makes bread rise. Old yeast, or yeast damaged by heat or exposure to air, doesn’t. In our testing, we had the best results with Fleishmann’s Bread Machine Yeast, but you can use any fresh active dry yeast. Check the date, and if in doubt, proof the yeast as suggested. You can use proofed yeast in your bread if you don’t let it sit around. Add it after the other ingredients have begun mixing, counting the water in the yeast as part of the bread’s liquid measure.

FAT

Butter lubricates the gluten, increasing the bread’s rise when added in amounts of 1 to 3 teaspoons per cup of flour. Oil is more healthful, but to get the leavening effect requires twice as much. Besides helping it rise, fat makes bread tender, and helps it to keep fresh and moist longer.

SWEETENERS

Use any nonartificial sweetener in bread. Honey is our first choice because its flavor harmonizes with whole wheat, and it also holds moisture, helping the bread keep better. For easy measuring, store honey in a warm place in a squeeze bottle. To measure, squirt the honey into an oiled spoon or into a see-through measuring cup. At eye level, 1 fluid ounce is 2 tablespoons, so you can measure even small amounts that way. Pour the recipe’s warm liquid in with the honey and stir until it’s dissolved; easy cleanup, no mess.

Cautions: too much of any kind of sweetener can overwhelm the yeast, slow it down, and reduce the loaf’s rise. Artificial sweeteners do not feed the yeast at all; some of them turn bitter or even toxic when heated.

GOODIES

Bread machine websites feature exotic recipes replete with fruits, cheeses, nuts, peppers, herbs, even chocolate chips. It is good to realize that when you are using whole wheat flour, many of these will take something of a backseat to the rich flavor of the wheat, so please use your imagination before investing in expensive additives that might not really sing out. Raisins and walnuts do fine, likewise sturdy dates and pecans. Poppy seeds and Kalamata olives make a show; bulgur wheat and pine nuts disappear. Applesauce or succulent dried nectarines contribute only a faint, lovely nuance.

Even if you add “extras” at the specified time, bread machines pulverize anything that isn’t fairly tough. Also, some