The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [177]
If you are going to be around when the last rising time starts, you have two separate options for a better loaf: 1. Take out the dough and shape it; remove the paddle, grease the peg, and put the dough back to rise and bake; or, 2. Turn off the machine. Shape the dough and put it into a greased loaf pan (or make rolls or pizza or a braid, and set on a greased baking sheet). Keep the rising dough in a draft-free place. Preheat your oven to about 400°F while the shaped dough rises high. Put it into the hot oven, and then immediately turn the heat down to 325°F if the dough includes dairy, 350°F if not. Bake about an hour—less for rolls or pizza—until nice and brown.
See this page for more about shaping and baking; for rolls; this page for pizza; this page for braiding and glazing.
THE SHORT VERSION
To summarize: for beginning-to-end machine baking, when converting recipes from other chapters in this book (or other nonmachine sources), include proportionately more yeast, more flavoring ingredients, and something to give the loaf better moisture. Specifically, cut the flour by a third and the liquid nearly by half, and let the rest stay the same! Start with a liquid measure close to what your manufacturer recommends for a basic recipe, and work from there.
If you use the machine only for mixing and kneading, keep the nonmachine recipe’s proportions. If you’re using a machine recipe but will bake in a normal oven, expect a higher rise and allow for that in choosing the size of your loaf pan.
In spite of some cavils, these machines are marvelous tools for a busy person’s kitchen, and can clear the way for a lot of really fine bread.
Specifics
A useful book: The Bread Machine Magic Book of Helpful Hints by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway (St. Martin’s Press, 1993)
Up to now, we have tried to speak generically, knowing that technology changes, and that by the time you read this, a model we praise may have been replaced by one even better. Even so, it may be helpful to have a few real-life details.
Being able to program your own timings is particularly helpful for whole wheat baking. As we go to press, only the Zojirushi Traditional and the Breadman Ultimate—the top machines—let you change the timings for preheat, kneading, rising, and baking. The Breadman lets you lengthen the “punching” and “shaping” times, too. Breadman’s shaping motion is very good, and lengthening those two timings makes its shaping outstanding.
Because timing has to balance temperature, the Zo timings can be a little longer than the Breadman, which rises faster, at slightly higher temperatures. Here are the timings we have worked out for them:
BREADMAN ZOJIRUSHI
ULTIMATE TRADITIONAL
KNEAD 25 minutes 25 minutes
RISE 1 60 minutes 1 hour, 15 minutes
PUNCH 10 seconds —
RISE 2 45 minutes 60 minutes
SHAPE 15 seconds —
RISE 3 30 minutes 40 minutes
BAKE 60 minutes 60 minutes
The Zojirushi’s long 9″ pan works best with a full two-pound recipe, making fifteen nicely shaped 5″ slices. Breadman Ultimate—and Black & Decker’s B2005, a non-programmable machine we like a lot—have 5″ 7½″ pans. Both machines easily handle a two-pound recipe: but do you want a loaf 8″ high? Using 1 ½-pound recipes, both make very pretty loaves of twelve shapely slices.
We hope these amazing machines bring you many fragrant, healthful loaves of delicious whole wheat bread.
THE LAUREL’S KITCHEN BREAD BOOK
was prepared for Random House entirely by Laurel and her friends. The full-page woodcut illustrations and the endpapers were designed by Ed, the Loaf for Learning by Victor, and the others by Laurel; all three worked at cutting the blocks, with Victor doing the lion’s share. Terry designed the book on Nick’s model and mothered it (and Laurel) through production with loving care. The text type is Sabon, set by Hassan; the titles are Monotype Centaur and Arrighi. For all those who donated time to it, this book is a labor of love,