Adventures in Breadmaking - Part II

Find Part I here.

Like I said before, it took me about 2 weeks to figure out what ingredients I really needed and then to actually start using the breadmaker. These have been my efforts over the past month or so.

According to Mr. Coffee's recipe book, a good starter loaf was just plain old White Bread.



And I have to say.... it was very tasty. This was the smallest size - one pound - and it was light, fluffy, and just very good. Even Husband liked it. (The kids are like me. Bread? Eaten!)

Second, I tried a Cherry loaf.



I picked this one to try because you used cherry juice instead of water, and you also added in dried cherries. It's kind of hard to tell scale here, but this was a 1.5 pound loaf. I'd expected it to come out taller than the white bread, but it was the same height. So I had a denser loaf instead.

It did not taste quite as cherry as I'd hoped. The scattered chunks of dried cherries helped with that though. This bread tasted really good when I slathered lots of butter on it & then warmed it in the microwave.

Next up, I decided to try making garlic bread. My Mr. Coffee book did not offer any options, so I scoured the Internet until I found something that sounded promising. (i.e. I had everything in the cupboard already!)

Technically, I still didn't have the correct seasonings, so instead of pulverizing garlic cloves, I just used garlic powder. And a bit of Italian seasoning. But the recipe also called for parmesean cheese, so how could it go wrong?

As it turned out.... the bread tasted good, but it wasn't GREAT all by itself. (Figures that this was the first loaf I was sharing outside of the family!). Perhaps if I had brought garlic butter, it would have gone over better.

In the end, there were leftovers, and I let them stand for a couple of days. Then I sliced them into little slices like this.



The dish in the middle contains olive oil, black pepper, and more Italian seasoning. Made that bread downright YUMMY.

Last night, I decided to try another juice based recipe. And the sweet-bread setting. The result? Orange-cinnamon bread.



I tried this bread because the liquid is orange juice instead of water. (Yes, I'm back to the juice thing.) This loaf finally rose like bread is kind of supposed to! It's not as dense as the cherry or garlic bread was; this had more of the consistency of the white bread. Taste-wise, you can pick up on the hint of cinnamon, but not the orange juice. Bummer.

So far... still in love with the bread machine! Especially the smell when it's baking.